THIRTY
“Madam, your food!” Maya was pulled out of her thoughts by the train attendant. She took the tray from him. It was a chicken sandwich with brown bread and some caramel custard with it. She liked caramel custard. She looked at her watch. It would take another ten hours to reach Mumbai. She wondered if going back to buried skeletons was the right decision.
“We all have a pervert side to us, Maya, a side that we never show to anyone else,” she remembered Vikram telling her. He was the only person she had confided to till date. Even her best friend Reva didn't know about this part of her life.
“Sometimes when we get lonely we turn towards sex as a quick fix. That is when we mix love and lust. Sadly, the pleasure derived is short lived, similar to the high obtained from alcohol. Once the effect is over we are back to being the same person we were. Sex leads to spiritual fulfilment and ecstasy only when it consummates love. In itself, it leads nowhere. Having said that we should be able to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make. Only then,it is possible to forgive others. So forget about it and stop feeling guilty.” He smiled. After that it was only now she decided to open the long closed door.
Raghu had been very excited when he heard that she was coming. Though she had decided not be in touch with him anymore after leaving Goa, she had broken her own rule. The urge to meet him again was very strong. As she bit into the sandwich she wondered if something that feels so strong could be wrong. Intensity is not a parameter of what is right or wrong, she told herself.
She saw Raghu as the train pulled into the station the next morning. He rushed towards her. “Oh Maya, my love,” he whispered, as he took the luggage from her.
If there were any mixed feelings, they went away in an instant.
How happy he is, she thought. And how happy I am too, she said to herself.
“Why don't you stay with me in my apartment,” he said.
“No, Raghu, I want to be on my own, but I may need your help.”
He drove her to her new destination. The flat was a studio apartment in Thane. They took the lift to reach the seventh floor where the flat was and opened the door. Aditya Sharma's flat had a small hall, a bedroom and a little kitchen and bathroom. “Uh, huh! This place needs a clean-up,” she said, more to herself.
“When I'm at your service, madam, you need not worry,” Raghu smiled at her.
She opened the windows. She could see the clutter of buildings around. One stuck to the other. She had wondered how her new neighbourhood would be.
Raghu took her around to shop for some basics. She bought a broom, a new electric stove, some dishes, soap and some more stuff to begin with. She insisted on hiring domestic help to clean the place up, but Raghu disapproved, doing it all by himself. For two hours he swept and cleaned the place and made it liveable.
They ordered some food from outside and chatted about this and that. Later that evening, as she had promised, she went to Raghu's apartment for dinner. It was a smallish apartment, but more than adequate for one person. The moment she went in and shut the door behind her, Raghu hugged her tightly before going into the kitchen.
He made some chicken sandwich and an egg sandwich,one for each of them. This time, the chicken came first.
“It's quite good,” she said taking a bite.
“I can cook for you every day of my life,” he said.
“That's good. In any case, I don't like cooking!”
“You won't have to. All you'll have to do is take care of our kids.”
He was assuming too much and this taking for granted wasn't going down too well with her.
“Oh! Maya! How long I've waited for you.”
“Do you love me?” she asked foolishly, driving herself into quicksand faster than anyone else could have. One can destroy his own existence much faster than anyone else could, she thought.
“Of course, I do. I love you very much. I can kiss your feet,” he said, but she would have preferred to have heard these words from Kartik.
She realised it was Raghu who was hugging her. He was looking into her eyes intently.
“What happened, Maya? You don't seem too good. Your eyes look sad. I don't like that.”
“I'm hungry,” she said
“Oh baby, finish your sandwich,” he said, letting go off her.
“Do you know how much I wished Kartik would do this for me,” she said, honestly, but tactlessly.
“He should, but he is an ass!”
“He doesn't love me.”
“Why did he marry you then?”
“Well, peer pressure. Besides, I thought I loved him. Maybe he did love me sometimes after all.”
“And did you really love him?”
“I did. Then I could not, because there was no love!”
“Can I ask you a question?” Raghu said.
“Of course!”
“What made you come to me?”
“Honestly, I don't know.”
“You were not scared?”
“Well, yes and no. I have never been to any one's place like this to stay.”
“Didn't you ever feel guilty about what happened in Goa?”
His lips twitched a little.
“I don't feel guilty. It was a moment when I just followed my heart.”
She saw disappointment in his eyes. He didn't expect this answer maybe.
“I think you are also to be blamed. You were not loyal to him.”
She sighed, looking somewhere far trying to disappear in some vacuum.
“By the way, how's your job doing?” she asked, changing the topic.
“It's no big deal.”
She smiled. “I'm sure it must be tough flying that big thing in the air all the time.”
“Oh no, not really. A Pilot needs to do only the take-offs and landings. Otherwise on-board computers do most of the work these days.”
“Well, take offs and landings are important too,” she smiled.
“Sure. It's the only time when I get a chance to kill people if I want to!”
“Nonsense,” she said knowing he was talking flippantly.
“By the way my air hostesses, tells me that I look smart in my uniform,” he said, revealing his ego. Maya laughed.
“What's there to laugh? You don't know how many of them are after me!”
“Who's stopping you?” she smiled.
“Well, I don't like them. They are mostly whores. They would sleep with anyone.”
“Gosh, that's bad language.” She said
“What else can I call them? I hate women who behave like sluts to get their job done.”
“What's wrong in it if people are ready to do the work?”
“You mean you will go and sleep with anyone who will get your job done?” he looked at her with ridicule in his eyes.
“Personally I won't. I can't do anything of that kind, but I don't think people who do it are wrong!”
“You think dirty.”
“What's dirty about it?”
“I'm amazed you don't realise what's dirty about it.”
“I believe everyone has a different perception, each individual makes his or her choices.” The Wiccan traits in her manifested in her words sometimes. “If someone can use his mental abilities to get something done, why can't the other person use his physical abilities? After all, it is his or her body and he or she should have the right to do whatever they wish .,” she continued, “In fact, I feel that it is better and far better than people raping someone or being nasty to each other. I think it will help in fighting crime against women if prostitution is legalised in this country.”
“You have a twisted mind,” he said, sounding genuinely taken aback.
“Nonsense,it's a matter of personal choice,” she insisted.
She saw Raghu reading a book when she came back from the bathroom. He looked inviting with his rugged good looks. He was wearing shorts and she could see his bare skin.
“You like to read?”
“Obviously!”
“What's so obvious about it,” she laughed.
“Any intelligent man would like to read. The power of the word,” he sounded dramatic. She glanced at his collection of books; most of them were about aviation and anthropology; an unusual combination, for sure.
“You don't like fiction?”
“I rarely read it. I like to read about history and evolution. Besides these, I like psychology. These are my favourite topics.”
“I see. I also like to read,” she said.
“No one would think so, looking at you,” he said, his words not completely said in jest. “Very funny!” she said, reading the titles of the books.
“Do you know the basic difference between men and women, lie in their minds.” He took out a book from his collection titled 'The Essence of Evolution'.
“If you notice men have always been hunters. In olden times they lived in caves and women were the ones who made the food and looked after children. These days they are hell bent on changing the rules and you can see where the society is going,” he continued not without rancour. “You mean women should not work?” she sounded a little agitated.
“They can, but that is not what they are made for. Look at the bodies of women. The shape, the purpose, it all is different. A woman is complete when she becomes a mother. She needs to be loved and taken care of. A man goes out hunts and comes back to the cave, or these days, to work and back. That's how it should be.”
Women are to be taken care of and loved, indeed. How she wished Kartik would have thought the same way. “Anyway, I think you should be dropping me back now,” she said.
He lived in Mulund and had to drop her in Thane. This was a tedious task, but he was willing to do it for her. He wished she would have stayed back. He could not understand why she wouldn't. Something about her was already making him insecure.
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