A Handful of Sunshine

by Vikram Bhatt

  ‘We are discussing a motorbike, not a blow-up doll,’ the head of creative said, his words interspersed with a laughter-induced raspy cough. Prady did not seem to mind at all and almost immediately began to think of another one.

  Prady was my first friend in Mumbai. Through the haze of cigarette smoke that hung over the creative meeting, I found myself gliding through the scattered clouds of my memories to when Prady and I had first met. I was the rich kid from Delhi and Prady was the senior copywriter who seemed to have conquered the big bad city of Mumbai.

  It had been just two weeks into my stint with Pearl and Grey when the senior creative director introduced me to Prady. Prady loved being the big bird that invited the young and inexperienced to learn under his wing; I was quickly sucked into the vacant spot under that wing.

  Prady had left Kolkata to try out the city of Mumbai. He did not like to talk about it, but to me it seemed to be a case of an irredeemable heartbreak. He wasn’t very tall and, in his own words, would have preferred to be three shades lighter. A pair of glasses hid his intelligent eyes; he wouldn’t negotiate on contact lenses or, for that matter, on the moustache he loved. I would call him stocky; he thought of himself as well-built.

  The first day we met, the agency had arranged for a client meeting. It was an advertisement for potato chips and the concept had been stuck for ages. The client hadn’t liked anything so far. Prady asked me to just watch him in action and learn—keep my mouth shut of course. This was a tough client and the agency did not want to lose the account over a novice shooting his mouth off. I nodded, excited but willing to obey.

  The client meeting was with two ladies and an older gentleman. They had in front of them a packet of potato chips and they wanted to have a tag line on the packet—something that the product would be known by, something really ‘cool’ that the kids would go for. The meeting went on endlessly.

  What Prady came up with, the client did not like, and what the client came up with, well, the client did not like that either!

  I had an idea, but I had been asked to keep quiet; so I did just that. But as the minutes ticked by, I was slowly feeling the urge to just spill my idea. It was agonizing!

  Finally, I told myself to throw caution to the wind and burst out, ‘How does this sound: a bunch of crunch?’

  There was silence in the room, and for the first time in hours the older man smiled. Taking a cue from him, the ladies smiled too. Prady was quiet, studying their faces. I was, however, in dread; I might have just thrown my career out of the window, that too on day one. The client got up from his chair and announced that he had found the line he wanted.

  The meeting was finally over.

  Prady and I rode home in silence, a noisy cab drive through the busy Mumbai streets. I had humiliated him in front of his clients. He had been trying to please them for the better part of an hour, and I, an upstart, had bagged it for the agency.

  When we got to the office, the creative director was overjoyed. He strode over to us and shook Prady’s hand with frightful vigour. ‘Well done, Prady! Their PR department called me as soon as you guys were done. We have the contract!’ The creative director was close to delirious. ‘Must be a huge account,’ I thought to myself. I was happy to let Prady take all the credit. It was the least I could do for having humiliated him so badly.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Prady said with a smile. ‘It was this young boy here. On his first client meeting he shows the agency what he is made of. We have a genius amongst us!’

  The creative director quickly turned to me and grabbed my hand to give it a violent handshake. He did not care who the hero of the meeting was. The account had been bagged and that’s what mattered.

  When he turned around and left us alone, Prady slapped me on the back, ‘I meant what I said; you are an advertising genius,’ he looked at me, genuine admiration evident in his eyes.

  I was touched, but still a trifle unhappy. ‘I am sorry; I shouldn’t have spoken in the meeting.’

  Prady began to walk away. ‘I am sorry; I shouldn’t have asked you to keep quiet.’

  Watching him walk down the corridor, I realized then that Prady was not your usual insecure superior. I had made a friend for life.

  The motorbike meeting ended soon after Prady’s ‘toys for boys’ quip. Prady and I stood on the terrace of the spacious office. I could feel the approach of the south-west monsoon in the air, threatening the city with low-hanging, dark clouds.

  Prady offered me a cigarette. ‘You have a date with Sunaina today?’ he inquired with a know-it-all smile.

  ‘Yep,’ I confirmed, taking the cigarette and lighting up.

  ‘She’s got great legs!’ he said, blowing smoke into the dark sky.

  I nodded.

  ‘You want to marry her?’ he probed, being vintage nosy Prady.

  ‘For God’s sake, man! I barely know her!’ I almost shouted, feeling unnecessarily guilty, as if Sunaina could hear us.

  ‘Chillax! Just asking. Don’t bite my head off!’ Prady said with a grin.

  I looked away and signalled a retreat.

  I’d met Sunaina at a conference for media professionals. She seemed bright and lonely, a state that I lived in, and a factor that could set the ball rolling towards intimacy. The fact that she was a knockout helped greatly. Tall and thin, like a model. Great legs, as Prady pointed out. I had a feeling that she had coloured her hair a dark brown, but it matched the colour of her eyes and I liked that.

  ‘How do you get these great-looking girls to date you?’ Prady asked, genuinely surprised. If it weren’t Prady, I would have been offended, but Prady was past any tact; that was the first thing you needed to know about him.

  ‘Have you heard of sapiosexuality?’ I quizzed him, stomping my cigarette out. He shook his head. ‘It’s when you get attracted to a person’s intelligence and not looks,’ I said, educating him.

  ‘You mean women find you intelligent and that kind of attracts them to you?’ Prady asked, lifting a brow.

  ‘Yes.’

  Prady looked a little incredulous.

  I laughed. ‘So now you know my secret!’

  He did not respond in kind. ‘Why would I not get them then? I am supremely intelligent!’

  I wanted to tell him that a bit of charm was an important ingredient in the mix; instead, I just shrugged and decided to be nice, ‘You are too intelligent. You scare them with so much raw mind power!’

  He thought about that for a moment and then nodded in agreement, ‘I think that could be true.’ That seemed to be the end of the discussion for him, because he began to talk about stratocumulus clouds. Prady was a fortunate man—so consumed by himself that he did not need anyone else to make him feel great.

  Dinner seemed like a long wait to the basic intent of the evening. I would have seemed disenchanted by my date to a casual observer, but then, how would the casual observer know that my mind had already raced joyfully ahead and was now playing out an intense sexual fantasy?

  Sunaina had paid special attention to how she looked that evening and it had paid off—she looked ravishing! A red dress that fitted her like a dream—the low cut revealing just the right amount of cleavage had succeeded in upping my primordial instincts.

  It was at precisely the moment when I had begun to undress Sunaina in my mind that the door opened and I saw her standing there. The warm glow of the restaurant lights fell on her beautiful face and the dark of the night made her stand out like an angel in a nightmare. She was beautiful, petite and slender. Her long hair tumbling carelessly over her shoulders and back, eyes shining bright like they held a secret, and her full lips, red—with life, instead of lipstick.

  She had a young man leading her into the restaurant but I could not see his face. Correction: I did not want to see his face. They were walking towards my table and my heart started to beat to a different rhythm. Then, as she passed me by, I felt my heart stop.

  Everything came to a standstill—the lounge music, the chatter, t
he tinkling of the cutlery . . . and time. I took a deep breath of her perfume, and it filled my senses with an inexplicable emotion. I did not know what it was, but whatever it was, I knew I had never felt this way before, and it was a feeling I never wanted to live without from that moment on.

  She sat across the room from me, a painting of a Sicilian village on the wall next to her. The overhead light magically fell just on her, conveniently obscuring her companion altogether—a beautiful girl talking to darkness. I had to tear my attention away from her to listen to something Sunaina was saying. It was some kind of joke and I made an atrocious attempt to laugh. She probably saw through it and decided to concentrate on her spaghetti, giving me another opportunity to glance across the room.

  Then something inexplicable happened, and I still remember the events that followed in searing detail.

  It began with a slow feeling of dread that started to gnaw at me—I just had to get up and speak to her right away or I was probably never going to see her again! Something told me that I would never feel the way I was feeling then, and the fear of that happening slowly took over my better senses mutely protesting that I stay put. There was a voice in my head (or heart?) asking me to go and tell her how I felt about her.

  I had to do it.

  I saw her date excuse himself and get up from the table.

  The voice in my head screamed at me, ‘This is your chance! If you do not go to her now and tell her how you feel, you will never be able to live with yourself again!’

  But my legs would not move.

  The voice was only getting more insistent. Sunaina was saying something and I heard ‘. . . olive oil’.

  ‘Now! Now! Now!’ the voice was shrieking.

  I got up suddenly, and without so much as a look at Sunaina, walked right up to the angel under the Sicilian village painting.

  She looked up at me with a question in her eyes.

  ‘Hello, my name is Veer . . . Veer Rai,’ I mumbled.

  She nodded and smiled.

  ‘I know you,’ I said, trying to steady my voice.

  ‘Have we met before?’ she inquired politely.

  ‘No, we have never met because if we had, I wouldn’t have forgotten. But when I said I know you I meant I have always known you. I have never been a believer of endless lives but I believe I have known you for millions of lives.’ It was all rushing out of me like I was some crazed lunatic.

  ‘Is this a joke? Has someone put you up to this?’ Her tone carried the disbelief that was written large on her face.

  I knew I was being absurd, but I carried on. ‘No. This is not a joke. I have really known you before. I have seen the early morning light fall on your face as you wake up and smile. I have seen you drinking coffee and reading the papers. I have seen you deciding what to wear for a party, your hair tied in a hasty bun. I have seen you dance in the rain, I have seen you cry in a movie, I have seen you look out of the aeroplane window in deep thought, I have seen you with dozens of shopping bags, I have seen you pointing gleefully at a rainbow, I have seen you smile a naughty smile, I have seen you when you look at me . . .’ I could have gone on.

  She looked at me, not scared, not alarmed, not amused, but with eyes that were at the same time sceptical and alive with hope.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her date walking back towards us, but I was past caring.

  ‘You might think I have lost my mind, but I’m really scared right now . . . scared that I will lose you, that I have waited for you through time, and every time we have tried to come together something has gone wrong.’ I was doing a remarkable job of making a fool of myself.

  Her date suddenly assumed the air of a nightclub bouncer. ‘Mira, do you know this guy? Is he harassing you?’

  Mira . . . such a beautiful name! She couldn’t have had a better name!

  Mira said nothing in response to her date/bodyguard’s question. She continued to look at me like I would make sense any minute now and she was waiting for that to happen.

  ‘I fear that you will not believe any of what I am saying . . . we will never cross paths again and all will be lost.’ I continued my diatribe.

  ‘Listen man, I think you should go back to wherever you came from and leave the lady alone.’ Mr Bouncer tried to push me away. I pushed him back.

  All hell broke loose in seconds. Mr Bouncer came at me with twice the force and with a terrible screeching sound. I tried to move away but only managed to bounce off another table.

  Sunaina realized something was terribly wrong, soon discovered what was wrong, and walked out of the restaurant and my life.

  That was the end of that. In the midst of the melee, I heard Prady in my head, ‘You let Sunaina go? What an idiot!’

  Mr Bouncer, with the aid of other strong hands, had me thrown out of the establishment easily.

  I remember Mira looking at me through all of it like I was in need of serious psychiatric evaluation. She did nothing to stop them from hauling me out on to the street. As a matter of fact, she did nothing at all. She just sat there, transfixed.

  I don’t know what I had been expecting.

  Prady was watching an American television series on murders and detectives when I rang the doorbell to his house. It was the first time I was seeing concern on his face. I must have looked quite a mess with all that roughing up.

  ‘All okay, bro?’ he inquired as he waved me in.

  ‘I need to find her, Prady. I have just found and lost the love of my life,’ I blurted with the urgency of a man whose house was on fire.

  ‘I have only vodka at home.’ Prady was obviously on another planet where alcohol was the answer to all woes.

  Then I caught my reflection in the ornate mirror on the wall and I realized it was I, not Prady, who was on another planet. I had to slow down and return to the same planet as everyone. And amongst that everyone, I had to find the one.

  I had to find Mira.

  MIRA

  Saturday night

  I felt as if I had been devastated by a hurricane.

  His name was Veer Rai.

  Never in my life had I seen so much intensity in a man. Never had I been so baffled by my own response to such intensity.

  What happened at the restaurant had been totally bizarre, to say the least; yet somewhere I caught myself believing every word that Veer had uttered. I could see that he was really trying to get something across with such fierce honesty that it was heartbreaking . . .

  I took a deep breath to clear my thoughts. It could well be that he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, or even a diagnosed one. I had no way of knowing. There was, however, one thing that was clear from his rant—the poor chap had been hit by an intense emotional tornado of a kind he had never experienced before.

  Dinner after the incident was painful and awkward for both Rohit and me. It was impossible to ignore what had happened and carry on with the date. My heart went out to Rohit and all the effort he had taken to make this work. He did try to make a joke about Veer and I did try to laugh, but neither of us succeeded. Rohit asked me if I wanted to go somewhere else for a coffee, and to me this seemed a little pathetic given the incident. It was not like a change of scene could negate the extent of what had happened. When you have felt the real thing, even if it’s only for a moment, nothing frivolous can take its place. Rohit, I think, knew that he would have to try getting me to agree to another date after a few days. I, on the other hand, did not think anyone would succeed at taking me out for a while now.

  Akshay knew the moment I reached home that something was not right. ‘Bad date?’ he probed, half serious, half mocking. I did not think anyone, Akshay included, would be able to understand what had happened, so I didn’t try to explain.

  ‘Bad headache,’ I lied.

  He smiled and walked across to give me a hug.

  ‘Go to sleep, baby. I love you.’ He kissed my forehead and I hugged him tight.

  He knew I was struggling with something and I knew he would allow me t
he space to figure it out on my own.

  A hot shower and an hour later, I lay awake in bed. The purple glow of the charging cell phone lit the room. The air conditioning hummed in the background. I found myself wondering if Veer would make the effort to find me in a city of millions. Then I closed my eyes and chastised myself for being silly. Veer certainly seemed to be a character out of a romance novel but life wasn’t a romance novel.

  Akshay was going to Singapore, and that meant I had to finally act grown up and help Dad with the Mumbai office. Akshay was the main conspirator behind me being dragged out of bed at an unearthly 10 a.m. (at least for me it was unearthly), being fed a forgettable breakfast, nudged into the car, nudged out of the car and put down on a leather seat in the conference room.

  The steaming cup of coffee was the last straw I was clutching on to for my sanity. Dad and Akshay explained to me what would make me an Indian Food Company executive. It was just the kind of job I was afraid I would have to do when I graduated from business school. Not that I couldn’t be the business ninja they wanted me to be, it was just that it was too culinary, which, on the other hand, it was supposed to be as it was a food company. I just wasn’t too thrilled about it.

  I also knew that despite what I was doing I still wasn’t thinking straight. Veer was to blame.

  And then it happened.

  ‘Mira ma’am, there is a gentleman by the name of Veer here to see you!’ Lucy peeped into the conference room, and her words burst into my very soul.

  ‘Who?’ I asked her weakly. My voice sounded as if it was coming from somewhere in the nether regions of my trachea.

  Both Akshay and Dad looked at me. I could hear the silent question as if they had just shouted it out loud: ‘Is this important enough to disrupt a crash course on how to become the future of the company?’

  Truth be told, it was more important than anything in the world. More truth be told, my heart was dashing all over the place like a Grand Prix racing car gone out of control. He had found me! How? I had to do a lot of computations while everyone in the room stared at me. Was he a stalker? But he wouldn’t dare come to my office in that case. A rapist? That was a silly one and I scratched that off, instantly.