by Vikram Bhatt
I’d been a fool and I was realizing my mistake. I had made a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. I had decided that I had no right to be happy and forfeited everything that made me happy to compensate for a loss that could not be bridged by any kind of sacrifice.
I had to go back to Mumbai! I had to go back to Veer!
The elevator doors opened on an unknown floor. An old lady smiled at me. It had been days since I had smiled back at anybody. I smiled back.
It wasn’t like the last time I had landed in Mumbai. The walk from the carousel to the arrival lounge reminded me of the morning when I had landed from Switzerland, the morning Akshay had left us. I was walking away from Veer that day, now I was rushing to him and I couldn’t wait.
Dad had sent the car for me and I knew that both he and Mom would be staying up, waiting to see me, but I couldn’t wait to see Veer. All through the flight from Singapore I had imagined ringing the doorbell to his house and the priceless look on his face when he saw me. It had been a month since I had left. A month since I had seen him or spoken with him and two weeks to the day he had landed up at Natasha’s place asking for my number. I knew that he would be very cross with me but I also knew that he would understand. Hell, he had to understand! He was supposed to be the love of my life!
I rang the doorbell. He took forever to get the door.
He stood there in a pair of jeans. He hadn’t bothered to put his shirt on. He looked miserable. His face was gaunt and he had lost a lot of weight. Natasha was right. He looked unkempt and unshaved, like he did not give a damn about his appearance.
If Veer had been taken aback by my sudden arrival at his doorstep, then he must’ve done so in some remote corner of his brain because he showed nothing on his face. He looked impassive, as if stoned. Probably Natasha had been right about the drugs she had smelled on him—a newly acquired habit.
I, on the other hand, was about to burst into tears. I rushed into his arms and did precisely that.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’ That was all I could say through my sobs.
I noticed that he took more time than usual to wrap his arms around me. It was at that moment that I also noticed a young woman, scantily dressed, walk out of his bedroom.
‘If it’s the pizza guy, it’s about time,’ she mumbled.
Then she saw me and froze.
Veer’s hands slipped away from my back, and with them I could feel my entire world slip away.
VEER
Saturday night
It had been two weeks since I had begun to hang out with Ronita and her gang of house music aficionados. It was a good escape from my private hell. Nights filled with the thick smoke of burning weed, some great, some terrible lyrics, and loud voices with a guitar that was one step away from cacophony. The gang were lucky they had day jobs or they were sure to be first in the unemployment queue.
Ronita clearly had a thing for me. She used every excuse to punch my arm in jest or fall on me, unable to support herself with laughter. Resultantly, even the really bad jokes had Ronita laughing and falling all over me.
I was a man whose day was divided into two shifts—work for twelve hours and lie stoned for the other twelve. Yet, through it all, I found myself thinking about Mira. Well, not thinking exactly; it was more like flashes of memory. I would be making a presentation and would suddenly hear her clear, ringing laugh. I would be cracking a campaign and would see her in my mind’s eye, pouting about something.
As the days passed, the memory pops stayed robust and strong, unwilling to leave, but what came with that was anger. Mira had shortchanged our love. She had no right to think for both of us. Was my pain less important than her parents’ pain? Was I her last priority? Scratch that! Was I any priority at all?
Pain and anger seek revenge. Revenge is an immature need to equalize the score against fate, but this kind of sanity comes only in hindsight. And the problem with hindsight is that it comes after, and not before. I wish there was a way that hindsight could be packed and sold at a shop for people like me. Sadly there isn’t.
It happened very fast.
Ronita held my hand. I did not pull it away. She turned around and kissed me; I kissed her back. She asked me if I wanted to take her to my apartment. I nodded. We sat in the cab in silence. She was hungry for me. I was angry at the world. She was all passion. I was all rage. When it was over she held me tight. ‘I have never felt such intense passion,’ she said breathlessly. I wanted to tell her that I had never felt such intense nothing, but instead I kept quiet and took refuge in a post-coital doobie.
Half an hour later, I was in my heaven of numbness and Ronita had ordered us a pizza.
The doorbell rang minutes after Ronita placed her order. Was I losing my sense of time or was it too fast for any pizza delivery guy to arrive?
I answered the door and found Mira smiling at me, tears in her eyes. I was pretty certain I was hallucinating. She grabbed me and said she loved me over and over again. My senses filled with her perfume, Chance. It took me a moment before I could hold her back.
Then Ronita walked out of the room in all her feminine glory.
Mira pulled away from me but continued to look at Ronita who in turn stood rooted to the spot. The woman in her knew that she had unwittingly got herself into a terrible relationship imbroglio.
‘I am sorry, I shouldn’t have landed up like this,’ Mira stepped back, the tears welling up in her eyes. Then she quickly turned around and walked out.
I stood there, unable to move for what seemed like ages. I felt heat spread through my body, burning my very insides till it scorched its way to the numbed-out recesses of my mind. The enormity of what had just happened hit me like a ton of bricks. I ran into the bedroom, grabbed my shirt and rushed out of the house hoping it was not too late.
Mira was about to get into her car when I caught up with her.
‘Mira, stop, please, it’s not what you think,’ I said grabbing her arm and effectively stopping her from getting into the car.
‘And what do I think, Veer? What should I think?’ she hissed back through her tears.
‘We are not together, Ronita and I. It was just today . . . it never happened before. It was just . . . I don’t know . . .’ It was becoming clear to me that there was no clear way to explain what had happened between Ronita and me.
‘What does it matter, Veer? It’s obvious that you have done a fabulous job of moving on and I am a real idiot for having come back from Singapore for you.’ Mira made another attempt at getting into her car but I held on to her arm tight.
‘Mira, this is me not moving on. This is me finding ways to deal with this enormous void that you have left in my life.’
‘By sleeping with another girl? Really, Veer?’ Mira scoffed.
I have always been the kind of guy who resists the urge to rage, but Mira’s sarcastic tone set something off.
‘Oh come on, Mira! Get off your high horse. You dump me, walk out of my life, cut yourself from me like I was the damn plague, and then when you come back you expect me to be waiting for you like nothing had ever happened? You are not the sun, Mira; the world does not revolve around you!’
Mira shook my grip off her arm and shouted back with equal fervour, ‘I am not judging you, Veer. Why the hell are you giving me all these explanations? Please feel free to go upstairs and have yourself another round of filling the enormous void with your amazing therapy. I realize I am the unstable psycho in this deal and so I am leaving you alone!’
‘Mira, it has been hard, really hard. I have been miserable and I love you . . .’
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Mira hollered through her tears. ‘People in love don’t do this. People in love wait for their love, for years if they have to, but they wait. They don’t go find someone else in order to forget!’
‘So I don’t love you? Is that what you are saying?’ Her words had hurt me deeply.
‘Yes, that is what I am saying.’ She was equally hurt. ‘
I had lost my brother, I was devastated and I wasn’t thinking straight. I took some terrible decisions but what is your excuse?’
‘I had lost my love,’ I said softly.
She did not have a good enough retort and I did not have a good explanation.
‘Veer,’ she said with an air of finality, ‘you are not the man I fell in love with and I am not the girl you fell in love with. Our love died in Switzerland and never came back to India. I will never see you again and I beg you, please, don’t try to see me. There is nothing more dead than a dead relationship and it’s time we put this farce to rest.’
I was pretty much done begging and explaining myself. Her decisions, arguments, reasons—everything had just become ridiculous. She could do whatever the hell she wanted and my job as a lover was to wait for her endlessly. She did not have to prove her love, only I did. She was right. She was not the girl I fell in love with.
‘I have no idea how you did it, Mira, but you have managed to become a loveless monster. I am sure you will do well in life.’
I left her standing on the pavement. I did not care what effect my words might have had on her. I felt my face wet with tears but I had no idea when they had streamed out. Perhaps I had become a loveless monster too.
Ronita was dressed and ready to leave when I stepped back into the house. She did not ask me any questions and I ventured no answers. I have an image of her wearing her shoes as I shut the door to my bedroom barring her and the rest of the world from my life.
Five minutes later my cell phone rang. It was Mira. She hung up before I could answer. I called her back but she did not answer. She never called again and neither did I.
We did not speak, see or even bump into each other for the next eight years.
LONDON
TODAY
VEER
Friday evening
‘And you never tried to get in touch with her again?’ Shazia asked.
The afternoon had turned into a hazy evening. The blue of the outside set off the yellow luminance of the lamps inside the pub.
I shook my head. It had been eight years, but it seemed like yesterday. The pain still as fresh, the memories still so vivid, and the vision of Mira standing on the pavement as I walked away from her still etched in my mind. It was the stuff of my nightmares.
‘I don’t know what to say, Veer. It is really tragic what happened to both of you. So much love and so much pain.’
Shazia had discovered a side of me that revealed to her that I was not as heartless as she had thought, not really an emotional miser. I was capable of feeling love and giving love. I had not always been the relationship-challenged commitment-phobic that she had known.
‘Even after all these years, she hasn’t forgiven you?’ Shazia was merely thinking aloud, not really posing the question to me. ‘Even after all these years, she carried out this elaborate plan to hurt you? Isn’t that strange?’
I shrugged. Nothing was strange when you had lived the kind of life I had. And when you add half a bottle of Jack Daniels to the mix, you get one hell of a jumbled-up Veer.
I stood up shakily, ‘Get the tab please, Shazia, I’ve got to go.’
‘You can barely stand, Veer, let me drop you home,’ Shazia urged.
‘Nope, let it be. You are not really Miss Sober either,’ I shot back as I staggered out.
The cabbie seemed an expert in dropping drunken men to their homes. He asked me where I wanted to go without letting a hint of disgust cross his face or stain his tone. It took me a while to remember where I stayed. I gave him the address. Then I leaned back to a spinning world in a moving cab. Five minutes into the ride, I changed my mind. Could he take me to the Canary Wharf? I had to see someone at the office of the Indian Food Company.
I staggered out of the cab to face the challenge of the revolving doors of the office building. Revolving doors can offer stiff resistance to a very drunk man, but I was also a determined man. I managed to get the timing right after watching the door go round for what seemed like ages. The strain of negotiating the doors must have affected me pretty badly; I almost crashed into the security kiosk.
‘I would like to see Mrs Mira Varma please, and I don’t have any appointment,’ I slurred my request to the security guard.
She looked at me, particularly displeased. This was no time to be drunk and certainly not the place to come in drunk.
‘I am sorry, sir, but did you say you don’t have an appointment?’ she inquired.
‘No. I mean, yes, that is what I said.’
‘You would need an appointment to see her,’ she said sternly.
‘I can wait here for her, could see her when she is on her way out,’ I countered.
‘Sir, I am sorry but I can’t allow you to wait here. It is against the rules!’
‘Why don’t you call the cops then?’ The security woman seemed startled by my sudden drunken defiance. ‘And then when Mrs Varma asks you why a friend of hers is in the slammer, you can read her your rule book. Good idea, you think?’
I had put her in a quandary quite effectively; her eyes grew a tad shifty.
‘What is your name, sir?’ she caved in.
‘Veer, Veer Rai.’
‘Allow me a moment please.’
She spoke to someone who seemed to speak to someone else, and after what seemed like five long minutes, the security officer grudgingly led me to the elevator.
Mr Weston was at the elevator to receive me. I could see that he was nowhere close to his usual affable self. He must have been informed that I was tanked-up. Whatever little impression I had made on him had been smashed to smithereens. Honestly, at that moment, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse.
He guided me to a waiting room and informed me that Mrs Varma would be with me presently. I saw that he couldn’t help crinkling his nose in disgust as he left me in the room. I thought the cab driver was far more drunk-man friendly than this chap, God bless the London cabbies.
Mira strode in with her handbag and a set of car keys. She must’ve been on her way out when she was told about her sloshed past waiting for her. She looked angry as she summed me up.
‘Look here, Veer!’ Mira began to admonish me, ‘I don’t know how you have been conducting yourself with other clients, but I will certainly not have . . .’
‘I love you, Mira,’ I said.
My words froze everything around us, from her words to time itself.
‘I have never stopped loving you. There has not been a day that I haven’t thought of you, felt a physical ache in my arms to hold you, to smell your hair, to hear your laughter, to feel your touch. On so many silent nights I have heard you say my name. I have seen you across the street smiling at me. I have imagined you lying next to me. I have seen you dry your hair after a shower. I have seen you smile at me over the flickering candles at dinner. I’ve watched you cook for me. I have quietly observed while you find it hard to decide between two cocktail dresses. I have lived a life with you in my head, like a parallel universe. A life where Mira and I are still together.’
Mira was either feeling too much or feeling too little; it was hard to tell for her face revealed no trace of any emotion.
‘And yet I have also lived with the knowledge that you are gone and that Mira will never be mine,’ I continued to pour out my heart. I had no idea where the words were coming from. I suppose I had kept them bottled up within me for too long and now they had a mind of their own.
‘If I knew you would come back to me I would have waited for lifetimes, but I thought that you did not even want to see me. I shouldn’t have believed in your words slamming me with the intention to shun me; instead I should have believed in our love. I failed our love by believing that you would leave me and never come back to me. I should have believed in our love more than I believed in your hasty decision of ending things between us. I should have known that our love was stronger than your mindless acts. I let our love down, Mira. I am sorry I did that. I really am.’
I saw Mira taking a step back. Perhaps she had had enough and was about to walk away. I must have looked really pathetic to her. I had to hurry and say what I really had come there for before she walked away.
‘Mira, I had no intention of saying all this to you. I did not come here to say all this.’
‘What did you come to say then?’ Mira asked. Her tone was softer now.
‘Please don’t punish my agency for my inadequacies. I know the pitch I made was great and I know you liked it, but I also know that you don’t want to work with me so I shall remove myself from the equation. Please work with Pearl and Grey; they will do a good job on your campaign. I shall ask them to depute someone else in my place. You will have no reason to complain, I promise you.’
Mira looked at me impassively for what seemed like a long time. She had nothing to say to me. I had nothing more to say either. I excused myself, bid her goodnight and made for the bank of elevators.
As I jabbed on the elevator call button I couldn’t help thinking that here I was still looking at myself through the fog of the past and here was Mira for whom that past did not even seem to exist. She had quite clearly moved on.
What I did not know was that over time Mira had grown to become a person who felt a lot more than she revealed.
Much more.
MIRA
Friday evening
I was angry—really, really angry. Veer had no business coming to my office drunk out of his wits, trying to manipulate me emotionally to go back on my assessment of his pitch and hire his damn advertising firm. It was really low, even for him.
The evening traffic on the motorway was aggravating my ire further. The WhatsApp message from Akhil was perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back. ‘Hey, my love,’ it read, ‘have got the wine and ordered the takeaway. All you have to do is show up. Linda and John will be here at eight sharp. Love, A.’
I had totally forgotten about dinner with Linda and John. They were a lovely couple, friends since our days in Singapore, but I could do without having to force a smile through an evening when all I felt like doing was murdering someone. Well, not someone, just Veer.
