Holyplace

A warm breath grazes my neck, and I hear a soft whisper in my ear: ‘Get up.’ Avantika looks at me and smiles, her hair falls over my face and she smells of expensive moisturizers and shampoo.

Shrey and Tiya haven’t woken up yet. I get up and follow Avantika to the balcony, where she has already ordered tea for us. The tea tastes horrible but the early morning breeze is amazing. We look inside and Shrey has already moved to the bed. He hugs Tiya, who purrs in her sleep, and kisses her on her neck. Avantika looks at them and smiles. I wrap myself around Avantika and hold her close.

‘That girl is crazy,’ she says.

‘I know. I don’t know what Shrey is doing with her.’

‘Naah, she is a nice girl. She apologized yesterday’ she says.

‘She did?’

Avantika nods.

‘Deb ... why Haridwar?’

‘Umm, just like that,’ I say.

‘You can hide it from them, but not from me,’ she says, as scepticism

drips from her eyes. I try to lie but I’ve never lied to her. I give up. I knew this was coming and I was wondering last night what’s taking her so long.

‘Fine, I will tell you.’

We sit down with our legs hanging from the ledge and I start to tell her everything that has happened since the day of the blast. She is partly shocked, partly interested. But mostly she thinks I have gone mad.

 ‘Why didn’t you tell me before, Deb?’

‘I didn’t want you to think I’m crazy.’

‘I think I would have,’ she says and smiles. ‘Why are you doing this? Are

you okay?’

‘See? That’s why I didn’t tell you. You think I’m crazy don’t you?’ ‘Aww. I don’t, Deb. I just want to know why. I can ask that, right?’

‘Of course, you can, but I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I just want to know about

this guy. I just think it could have been me.’

‘Don’t say that. Nothing will ever happen to you.’

‘But, Avantika ... I have you. You know what I have for you. You know

what my parents mean to me and what Shrey means to me. If tomorrow I am not there any more, you can tell them that. This guy died without telling anyone. Piyush, his girl ... I could have been him. I could have gone without telling you how much I love you. This story is not yet finished,’ I say.

She has tears in her eyes. She doesn’t give a shit about the guy in the diary, she cares about me.

‘I would’ve known you love me,’ she says and I kiss away a sole teardrop resting on her cheek.

‘I know it’s crazy but I want to find the girl from the diary and hand this over to her. The guy deserves it, don’t you think?’ I ask.

‘I am coming with you.’

‘Don’t you have office tomorrow?’

‘That can wait. It’s been so long since we took a vacation. Maybe this

will rejuvenate me. And make me a little younger. Maybe fun too,’ she says a little sadly.

Aw! You will always be sixteen to me.’

She smiles. ‘Deb, can I read it? The diary?’

‘How can I ever say no to you?’ I say and fetch it from my bag.

As soon as I give it to her, I see the small pearls of tears accumulate at

the corners of her eyes. I know what she’s thinking. The burnt edges of the diary bring vivid and scary images to one’s head. The person who possessed it burnt to death and the diary was probably what he was holding in his dying moments. It’s a powerful feeling and you can only feel it when it happens to you.

I keep her close as she starts to read the diary. I wrap a blanket around us as it’s a little chilly outside. She looks at me intermittently and she can

 barely keep herself from crying. It’s as if her eyes keep asking me the same question—‘Is he really dead?’ It’s amazing how much sympathy the dead guy evokes.

Anyway, I like these moments. Traditionally, the guy is supposed to take care of the girl he’s in love with. But with Avantika, it doesn’t work that way. Avantika has always been a strong woman and never needed my help in doing anything. She is as good with screwdrivers and laptops as she is with her make-up. But in these moments of vulnerability, like the one right now, I feel like a man. I can hold her, hug her and tell her that I will be there and I will make everything all right. I have always waited for times like these when I can make her feel like a little baby who needs to be cared for. Usually it’s only me who needs a lot of care.

Avantika and I had prepared for the CAT (Common Admission Test) together—the exam to get into most of the elite management colleges—and I know that she is a fast reader.

She used to be lightning-quick with the English passages we had to read through to answer multiple-choice questions. But she takes her own sweet time reading this diary, stopping and rereading certain sections.

She reads the entire diary, looks at me and says, ‘I am coming with you.’

She doesn’t say anything else, but her eyes tell me everything. She hugs me tighter and sobs slightly, and we sit there, wrapped within the warm blanket and she dozes off. I hug her tighter, watch her sleep for a little while and doze off too.

‘At least tell us where you are going?’ Shrey asks us as Avantika and I step into a taxi to go and meet Piyush.

‘Later,’ we say and wave at them. Shrey stands there confused and Tiya smiles at us meekly. She has both her hands on her head; her hangover is still pretty much kicking the shit out of her. The taxi drives away from them and Avantika snatches the piece of paper from me.

‘Have you called?’ she asks, pointing to the piece of paper with Piyush Makhija’s name and address.

‘The number doesn’t work.’

She still calls on that number. Same result. We move through the streets and Avantika waves and asks about the address from anyone she can get hold of. People stare at her for a while, then shake their heads. No one has

 seen the place. Finally, after going to all the wrong places, we reach the house we’re looking for. It’s nothing like what we’d imagined.

We stand outside a house, wrecked by weather and time, the walls covered with overgrown algae and stripped of their plaster—the bricks lying almost bare. The address is barely visible. Imperial Academy, Dehradun, is a school for rich kids and this is not what we had expected. The house looks deserted. I point to the address plate. It’s the same place for sure.

‘Are you sure they still live here?’ she asks, almost disappointed. ‘Let’s see.’

I ring the bell and there is no answer. We wait for a couple of minutes

and I ring it again. I look at Avantika and she shakes her head. This can’t be a dead end. I am dejected. Just as we’re about to leave, we see an old man walking towards us. His clothes are in tatters; time and old age seem to have taken a toll on the man.

‘Hi, Uncle. Is Piyush there?’ I ask.

‘Beta, you are?’ he asks.

‘We are his friends from school,’ Avantika says.

‘No, beta. He lives in Bhopal. He works there. Come inside. Have

something,’ he says and opens the door.

‘No, Uncle, thank you. We were in the area so we thought we would

meet him,’ I say.

‘Can we get his number? Or address?’ Avantika adds.

‘Yes, sure,’ says his father and insists on us coming inside. We politely

refuse. He goes inside and returns with a card in his hand.

‘Here,’ he says and hands it over to us.

Avantika takes it from his hand. ‘Thank you, Uncle. Umm, does he come

here often?’

‘We haven’t seen him in a year,’ he says. ‘He is working hard. His

mother has not been keeping well. She needs a lot of medical care ... lung cancer.’

The old man has tears in his eyes. They are of pride and sadness. He has a good son, but a dying wife. Life throws such immense riddles at you. I look at him for one last time and feel lucky about myself. In moments like these, I believe there is God. We smile at the old man and take his leave.

‘Show!’ I say and snatch the card from Avantika. ‘So, are you going to call?’

 ‘Should I?’ Avantika asks.

‘Why not? Go ahead.’

Avantika calls on the number and there is no answer. The call goes to

voicemail and it plays a recorded message.

‘Hi. This is Piyush Makhija. I will not be available till the 22nd of September on this number. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. If it’s urgent please call on the office landline at 0755-56457332 or else record your message after the beep. I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you. Beep.’

We call on the number thrice and it goes to voicemail every time we do that. We call on the office landline number and his colleague tells us he is visiting the power plant site and cell phones don’t work in that area. He adds that he’ll be back by tomorrow morning.

‘What do we do now?’ Avantika asks.

‘Twenty-second is tomorrow, right? So we stay here today. And we call him tomorrow and ask about Ragini?’

‘How long is the drive from here to Bhopal?’

‘Wait,’ I say and g****e ‘Haridwar to Bhopal’ and it says, 919 kilometres. ‘It will take approximately thirteen hours to get there.’

‘So, we can be there by tomorrow morning?’

‘If we leave in a few hours, yes, we can,’ I say.

‘We can go there then.’

‘But we can call him tomorrow too? Why go all the way to meet him?’ ‘Deb, it’s a road trip, right? And there’s nothing to do here. Just an

overnight drive away. What say?’ Avantika suggests.

‘Seems like we’re going to Bhopal, then,’ I say and smile at her. It’s hard

to turn down her requests. She looks so adorable when she asks for anything.

‘Wouldn’t Shrey mind?’ she asks.

‘He wouldn’t ask.’

We get back into the taxi. Avantika keeps staring at the address and the

phone number for quite some time.

‘It’s good that we’re going there. I wanted to see what he’s like,’ she

says.

‘Why would you want to see what he’s like?’

‘I think I have a little crush on him. He’s so sweet.’ ‘Crush? You read two lines about him, Avantika.’

 ‘I’m kidding! But I’m curious,’ she says, smiles and looks away from me. I really don’t get her at times. But then again, she is a girl and girls are not meant to be understood, they are meant to be loved. I do that job well enough, I guess.

We get back to our hotel room. We don’t see Tiya and Shrey around. They must have gone out, I think. I haven’t shaved for the last four days and Avantika has been complaining.

‘Deb?’ Avantika asks and enters the washroom as I start to shave. ‘Yes?’

‘Where are their bags?’

‘They aren’t here? They must have gone out. The car was still outside.’ ‘But where are the slippers? Toothbrushes? Everything?’

‘Huh?’

Before I can process anything, my phone rings. It’s Shrey.

My hands are smeared with shaving foam, so Avantika picks up the

phone, holds it near my face and puts it on loudspeaker.

‘Hey Deb! We had to leave, man,’ he says, ‘We hired a bike and we’re

going somewhere. Tiya will decide in a while where we’re going. I’ve left the car for the two of you.’

‘Going, as in?’

‘On a trip of our own.’

‘What the fuck! Why?’ I ask and try to turn the speaker off. But Avantika

doesn’t let me do that.

‘Just like that.’

‘Just like that, Shrey? You get Tiya along first. And now you abandon

me? This is your idea of a road trip?’

As I say this I can hear Tiya woo-hoooing in the back seat of the

motorcycle, through the speaker. I don’t know why girls do that. Years of pillion-riding behind Shrey and I haven’t ever made that eardrum-piercing sound. Girls!

‘Deb, it’s just that Tiya and I wanted to spend some time alone. And with Avantika, umm, she isn’t that comfortable.’

I see Avantika’s face droop. I try to switch the speaker off again, but Avantika slaps my hand away.

‘Comfortable as in?’ I ask Shrey.

 Avantika acts like her mom. Tiya is young. And free! She wants to have a little fun, like get drunk and not be told what’s right and what’s not. Avantika is a little ... like us. Old.’

‘Fuck off, man,’ I say.

‘Whatever, Deb. Anyway, I know you’ll have fun. It’s you and her alone. What else can you ask for?’ he says.

Avantika keeps the phone on the washbasin and walks away.

‘Oh yes. Thanks for that! Why didn’t I think of that? This should be nice,’ I say loudly so that Avantika hears and feels good about it. She doesn’t react.

‘Bye,’ Shrey says.

‘BYE, DEB!’ Tiya shouts from behind. The call disconnects. Fuck. Avantika shouldn’t have heard that. She sits on the ledge of the balcony and looks outside. I go and sit next to her. She stands up.

‘I will go take a shower,’ she says.

‘Should I join in—?’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she says and looks at me with murderous

eyes. I take these looks seriously. She walks away. Avantika makes me horny all the time, but she scares me more.

She shuts the washroom door behind her and I sit there imagining her under the shower. I know that’s not something I should be thinking about. I should be thinking about damage control. And, c’mon, Avantika is not old. She’s just twenty-three! And she is like a little wild cat in bed. How can someone call her old? Just because Tiya is younger and crazier doesn’t make Avantika old, does it?

I walk into the room and lie down on the bed. I look around to see Avantika’s suitcases all around me. Twelve of them. Maybe something has changed. She has grown up a little. I still remember the two days we spent in her old classroom at SRCC. We had just started going out and both of us were big fans of cheap thrills.

She had always wanted to make out in her college classroom. So one day, after class, we had hidden inside the college and got ourselves locked in with a blanket and few packets of chips and water! The next day, the college staff had gone on a strike. So we were locked in her classroom for two days with just a blanket and hardly any food. And lots of love, of course.

 So now, seeing these suitcases around me ... yes, something has changed. She is not the crazy nineteen-year-old any more, but she is not a boring twenty-three-year-old either. I can’t keep up with someone like Tiya, so I’m glad Avantika has slowed down as have her crazy instincts. But then, how can Shrey cope with Tiya? Oh crap. Am I getting old?

I wait for Avantika to come out of the shower. I lie down and feel like sleeping. Maybe I am getting old. This doesn’t sound so good. Avantika comes out of the shower, wet and gorgeous, though her face still wears a dead expression.

‘So, we leave for Bhopal, right?’ I ask. Despite everything, I still can’t shake the diary off my head. I know she’s sad and I should say something sweet, but the diary just keeps making me restless and I can’t make the journey alone. Bhopal is too long a drive from Haridwar and there’s no way I can do that alone.

‘Home,’ she says.

‘Delhi? But why?’

‘I have work,’ she says and dries her hair.

‘But we were going to Bhopal. We have to find this girl. You can’t just

let it go,’ I protest.

‘You carry on. I just remembered I have some work to take care of in

Delhi.’

‘See, if it’s about what Shrey—’

‘It’s not,’ she says.

‘You know he’s an asshole, and—’

‘It’s not about what he said!’ she shouts. I don’t know what to say. She

gets back to drying her hair, still pissed. ‘It’s not his fault. I am getting old. You should go on this fun trip with Shrey and Tiya. I will go back to Delhi.’

‘But, Avantika—’

‘Just do what I say,’ she says and gives me one of those dead serious looks and I don’t have a comeback for it. It’s very hard to argue with her. She is breathtakingly beautiful and ruthlessly authoritative. It’s impossible to stand up to her.

I watch her dress up and manage her suitcases. I pack my small bag and pretend to be busy. I’m not sure whether she’s angry or sad, but whatever it is, I can’t do anything about it. I’m ready to leave.

She stands there and puts on her lipstick. Avantika always looks great in formals but I can’t tell her that today. Her movements are slow and

 deliberate. She looks worried. It seems like she has taken Shrey very seriously. I don’t know how to set it right. What makes it worse is the fucking diary. I have no idea what I’ll do next. I don’t know if Shrey and Tiya would want to join me and I certainly can’t go back to Delhi. I have to go to Bhopal.

‘Deb,’ Avantika looks at me and says. ‘Go to the reception and ask the guy to carry these suitcases to the car.’

‘I will take them,’ I say and start to pick one of them.

‘Deb, leave it. Do as I say. Go, wait in the car. Send the guy up, I will come down in a while,’ she says dryly but authoritatively.

I have no choice. I pick up my bag and head downstairs. On the way out, I pay the receptionist and ask the waiter to get the suitcases. My brain is a wreck and I have no idea how to put this trip back on track. Fifteen minutes pass by and there is no sign of the waiter or Avantika. I call her on her cell phone but there is no reply. Is she crying? Is it that big a deal? I stick my eyes on the hotel door and wait for her to come out. I try to construct sentences in my head that I would say to console her and get her to accompany me to Bhopal. I wait endlessly. There is no sign of her. Until ...

I feel lost. Is this ...? No way!

A girl walks out of the main door of the hotel who looks like Avantika but starkly different. It takes me time to place the face that is staring back at me, but I now remember clearly—she is the one I have often seen in my dreams, intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.

The girl is in a dirt-grey vest tied above her navel baring her washboard- flat stomach, light-brown hot pants and a big buckled belt. Her long legs, perfectly shaped and toned, glisten in the morning sunlight. There is no sign of any fat on her body. Her stomach, flat and shiny with a perfectly round navel, seems to be made out of granite. The vest accentuates her breasts and the hot pants are such a cruel tease. Her long, black hair is untied and blows in the direction of the wind. There is no make-up on her face, her eyes are hid partially behind yellow-tinted sunglasses and she is smiling wickedly. As she walks closer to me, I feel threatened by her sheer sexiness. Her smouldering eyes never lose eye contact with me, although I mentally strip off her skimpy clothes.

There are very few times when a girl looks better with clothes on than naked and this is one of those moments. She looks stunning. Like a model walking on a ramp. A showstopper in her last show ever. Half her sexiness

 is in her walk, her flat stomach and her sultry legs, and the other half is in her eyes.

She comes near and steps into the car. She leans back on the passenger seat and rests her long, bare legs on the dashboard. It keeps getting better. I am dazed, fascinated and shocked, all at the same time. I am whirling down an unending pit of mind-boggling hotness. Finally, I find the courage to speak.

‘My girlfriend is in the hotel, but I am ready to dump her for you.’ ‘Do you like me better?’

‘I think so, but I love her.’

‘You will learn to love me too. Now, stop staring and drive,’ says

Avantika and puts her shades on her head.

‘Your suitcases?’ I ask.

‘What suitcases?’ She winks at me.

And people say that the spark in a relationship dies out after the first few

months. Ha!

8 November 2010

‘Why should it matter if someone else touched her in the past? Does it hurt because she has been violated and is impure? Or does it hurt because she was in love with someone other than me? For me, it’s the latter.’

There must be a bond greater than friendship between us that made Ragini talk about her previous relationships today. Ragini’s voice quivered as she told me about the guy, her best friend in school, whom she had loved with all her heart. I asked her if she still had feelings for him and she shook her head. But I knew something was wrong and I insisted. She said I would judge her if she told me everything and I made her believe that I wouldn’t.

Ragini was the house captain and the guy was the vice-president of the students’ council—it was a match made in, well, ninth grade. They held hands, made handmade cards and did their homework together. As years went by and innocence became more of an abusive term than a virtue, intimacy started creeping into their relationship. This was in eleventh grade. In twelfth grade, Ragini got pregnant. It wasn’t until her second month that she got worried and realized that something was wrong. The guy developed cold feet and asked Ragini to ‘manage’ on her own. Ragini’s close friend, Nigel, a handsome boy whom Ragini had always liked, came to her rescue. He had just started college then and was more mature.

Nigel helped Ragini get an abortion. Her eyes had tears as she narrated the incident that could have left anybody emotionally scarred for the rest of their life. I could only imagine what she must have gone through. She was only sixteen—an age where young girls start to have minute little crushes—and she went through an ordeal which could have withered even the sanest of adults.

I told her that she is the bravest girl I have ever met and she smiled at me. Her hand grazed past mine, leaving me short of breath, and then she held it and thanked me. She told me that she had not been able to share this with anybody else. I am sure she tried to imply that I was special to her. She doesn’t say it, but I am sure she wants to. Maybe she

will do so tomorrow. She had to leave today, so she did, and left me behind, missing her. I am sure we have a connection. Or else why would she share something that she has not shared with anyone else?

I wish I could see her tomorrow

13 November 2010

‘What do you do when the person you love the most loves someone else? Do you stop loving that person? Or do you love that person even more? It’s the latter for me.’

Ragini called me yesterday. I wish she hadn’t and I wish yesterday didn’t exist. I have never been inclined to meet any of Ragini’s friends and she had never asked. But when she called me and pestered me to meet a friend of hers, I knew I had competition. The person had to be really special. Even before I met him, I had only contempt in my heart for him.

I saw him, the second special person in Ragini’s life, and I was not happy with what I saw. He had tiny fingers, I noticed, but apart from that, he looked like what everyone labels as Boyfriend Material. He stood well over six feet tall, had a sharp jawline and a sinister bad boy smile. He told me he had just graduated and was working with a big bank in Bangalore. He used to be a neighbour of Ragini’s in Delhi before he relocated with his parents. He should have been in Bangalore right then, but he said he couldn’t and told Ragini—while I stood there and hoped he wouldn’t say what I feared he would—that he missed her and couldn’t stay away. He told her that he had come just to meet her.

It turned out that Ragini had always been in love with Nigel, she tearfully admitted, and Nigel had broken up with his girlfriend because she couldn’t bear Nigel being so close to Ragini. Their teary reunion and confession of love brought tears to my eyes too, though my reasons were a lot different from theirs. But I am not that selfish. I would still love her and be happy for her. It would take a lot more than Nigel to make me not love her. And anyone would say that Ragini and I would make a better couple than Nigel and her. Nigel is too tall for her. And he’s Christian ... What about Ragini’s conservative parents?

As they sat in front of me and held hands, shared private jokes and anecdotes from their days in Delhi, I felt jealous. The only silver lining to the dark cloud was that he left today. He had to rejoin work and he said he would be back soon. I am not looking forward to that. I don’t know whether it’s my mind playing tricks, but Ragini looked even more beautiful today. Had I been Nigel, I would never have left.

Ragini looked happy and I was happy for her. They were made for each other. They were perfect. They were the best of friends and had seen some tough times together. It’s a perfect fairy tale. Nigel loves her too. It’s evident in the glint in his eyes and the warmth in his touch. Nigel deserved her. And she deserved him. I was an outsider the day I had started stalking her, and maybe that’s how it’s going to be.

Ragini asked me to start dating someone too. I tried not to tell her that she was the only one I wanted. As I sit on my bed and write this, I can feel a few tears trickle down my cheek and wet the diary in which I am writing. I plan to be okay tomorrow. We are meeting again. She wants to catch a movie though she is not sure whether she can bunk her class. I wish she does. I don’t know if I will be as special to her in the days to come as I am now.