Untitled

The plane was circling around the airport. I could see a million lights scattered across the city. It looked as if the city was a chest filled with jewels. The flight was a long one and I was already very tired. The show at Sydney went off very well. After a brief hiatus at Bombay, I was supposed to leave again for London where the next show was to be held. Being in a software company had its own thrills and chills. The Captain of the plane announced the landing and requested to put the seat belts on. I wondered if Rachael would be at home. Rachael was a crazy woman always in a completely messed up state of mind. She was desperate to be an independent woman and live life at her own terms. She did not want to be left out from the definition of the ‘high flying liberated society’.

After collecting my bags, I headed to the Taxi service counter at the exit of the airport. The city airport was as messy as it could be. More than the place, it was the people at the Customs. They would rip apart every little baggage and check if they could get anything valuable for which they could get paid for unofficially. Switching on my mobile, I hoped, it was charged enough. I did not have the key to the apartment and if Rachael was not home, I would end up waiting for her on the stairs and I was too tired for any such thing to happen. The screen showed a single stick indicating the lowness of battery charge. I speed dialed Rachael’s number. The bell rang. She did not pick up. I gave the receipt to a cabbie, who called out the number of the taxie. A Sikh guy ran up. He picked up the bags and walked me to the taxie I was allotted.

I dialed again. No answer. I dialed my ex-husband. It was around a year that we had separated. We loved each other, but there were some thing’s that our love could not handle. We were growing apart. Things were much better earlier before we got married. We had vowed that we would never impose ourselves on each other and keep our independence intact. But somewhere after our marriage, we forgot the little promise and everything got messed up. We were friends, still in love but apart. He picked up the phone.

“Hi sweetheart” he picked the phone within a single ring. It was usually that way. And my heart used to miss a beat when I dialed his number.
“Hi how are you?” both of us said together. It was our little routine. Every time we called we would end up asking the same question to each other at the same time.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I am ok. How about you?”
“I am ok” he replied.
“When did you come from Sydney?”
“Just a while ago” I never used to call him immediately after I was back. “Just landed in fact.”
“Can I come over to your place? I can’t trace Rachel, and I have no battery left inside me and the cell phone to try contacting her” I asked.
“No problem” he said.

I instructed the cabbie to divert the route. He asked for an extra hundred rupees. I was in no mood to argue and I obliged.

Rajiv’s home was neatly decorated. There were only two bean bags and a little foam laid on the floor in the whole house. A music system was on in one corner and a laptop on another. It was that neat. He had this thing about space. He felt that we would have more time in our lives if he had less things cluttered around us. It is a psychological thing, he tried to explain. I never tried to argue on it. We had already many issues to argue on. I dragged in my suitcase and dumped myself on to the beanbag. He went into his minimalist kitchen and came out with two mugs full of coffee.

“The coffee, just like you want. Hot and really bitter” he said. He had already made the coffee after I called him telling him I would be home.

“You remember!” I thought. I graciously accepted. “So what are you working on right now?”

“Just the usual crap. Writing lies” he smiled.
He walked down the room and put in a CD. I could guess even before he had pressed the play button. It was a Kitaro CD.

“When are you off to your next show?” he asked me.

“Next week” I never bothered to tell him where, and he never asked me too. During our ‘happily married’ status, there were a million questions asked.

“How is Fayyaz?”

“He is good, almost survived a bomb blast.”

“Poor thing, it must be so difficult to live in such a place torn by conflict!”

“Well, you don’t have to patronize him. It is his choice. He better live with his own choice.”

“I am not patronizing him.”

“Well, your sympathizing for him and you know I don’t like anyone sympathizing for anybody!”

“It is easy for you to say that. You live in a war torn land and you will know what pain is. Where so many people die everyday”

“I know what pain is! I know what it is, to die everyday”

He pressed the play button on the CD player. He went to the corner of the room, pulling out the bean bag and started typing away on the laptop. Slowly, the serene music enveloped my thoughts and I dozed off.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the bed nicely wrapped up in the blanket. My shoes were nicely kept in a corner. Rajiv had fallen asleep on the bean bag. I got up and headed towards the bathroom. I washed my face and went to the kitchen to make coffee. I could only make black coffee. That is the only thing I had learnt. Rajiv was a nice cook. A nice cook but not a good cook. He used to experiment with cooking, but always ended up ordering for food from the nearby Sri Krishna restaurant. As the water boiled, I looked at him sleeping. He was in such a mess. His mouth open. His hands and legs spread across in all four directions. He always gave me a reason to smile. I took my mobile charger and plugged it into the socket and switched it on.

I went across to wake him up. His laptop was still on. A word document lay open. It read…

In the month of September as the winds of change blow across the city of Mumbai, I chanced upon a little child as I walked into the narrow streets of a slum colony. The child sat there eating vada-pav. The mashed potatoes smeared around her face as she plunged herself into the vada-pav to satisfy her hunger. A sparkle in her eye was that caught my attention to her. The quirky way in which she held her food in her hands and the dance of her jaw as she munched the eatables in her grasp….

He just turned around. Opening his eyes, he looked at me and gave me a smile.

“Do you know that you still snore like a pig?”
“No I don’t!” I replied.
“Yes you do!”
“No I don’t!” I tried to skip the conversation. “What are you writing now?”
“Well I was planning to write something worthwhile. This thing had happened a week back, when Rohan and Shawn picked me up for a night out fun. It unraveled a lot of dark secrets about life. Why don’t you read it and let me know what you think” he said.

Sipping the coffee I read on.
“Who is Susie?” I interrupted.
“A fictional receptionist in the office. Wanted to put some spice in the story, but later it did not work out. So left it the way it is.” He replied. He indeed lied quite well, but he could not lie to me. I used to catch him red handed. He would not look into my eye when he lied. This time he looked into my eye. Even though I was divorced from him, I could barely imagine him sleeping with someone else. And neither could I give myself to someone else. The story including the name of Susie having a physical relationship with Rajiv troubled my soul. Thankfully it was only fiction!

“It is nice” I said as I finished the story. “But is this the end of the story or is there more?”

“Let me see, I have asked Shawn to give me Blaze’s telephone number. Let’s see where he leads the story!” he replied.

“I am sure it will turn out good.” I told him.

I wanted to hug him and kiss him, but something within me was holding me back. I finished the coffee and went to the bath. He was already spic and span, ready to go to office.
“Leave the keys at the neighbor’s house. O.K. and call me before you leave. We’ll catch up on a movie or something” he said as he closed the door behind him.

“Whatever!” I replied, not knowing what to do and what to say.

I sat in the shower and cried. My tears getting lost in the constant stream of water that hit me and drenched me. I was absolutely blank. I did not know why I cried. After a long time in the shower, I came out. I headed for the mobile that lay ringing.

It was from a number I did not recognize. I picked up the phone.
“When did you reach?” Rachael asked.
“Yesterday night” I replied, my throat was parched.
“I am so sorry, I couldn’t pick up your call. I was in the car with Shawn. He was getting dirty and he did not allow me to pick the phone at all. I am sorry.” She tried to explain.

Both me and Rajiv knew both of them and were absolutely sure they deserved each other. Rachael also had a fling of boyfriends who she still sees when Shawn is not in town. And Shawn was a two timer since the day he had joined the ship. I wondered why he kept friends like Shawn, but then he would ask me the same about Rachael. Call her the ‘independent, liberated’ woman of today!

“Anyways I will reach home by two. See you then” she said. A long disconnected tone followed. I dressed myself up. There was a photograph of our wedding on the table. I looked at it. Tears filled my eyes. I kissed Rajiv.

“It will work out” I told myself “You just got to have faith in yourself”

I packed my bags and left. I left a little folder with my passport behind. At least there was a reason to meet Rajiv again.