And so, finally, I got my much needed sleep which was interrupted, not before I had a livening chunk of it, not by Khosla this time, but by her call. She was naturally surprised to hear my sleep voice at eight in the evening when most of the people in this time-zone are, no doubt, awake.
“Were you sleeping?” Miss Shreya asked.
“Yaaaa,” I said and my yaaaa terminated into a yawn. “At this hour?”
“Oh, I have been sleeping for the past five hours, I guess.” “Are you well?”
“Now, yes!”
“What do you mean, ‘now yes’? What happened earlier?” “That is a long story.”
“and you are going to tell me.” But of course!”
“Hope everything is alright!”
“Now, yes!”
“Stop saying ‘now yes’ and tell me what happened!”
“Tell me Shreya, have you read the Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’?”
“You know I haven’t read Holmes!”
“And how many times have I told you to read him?”
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“Not until you read Holmes.”
“Shut up and tell me. Have you gone mad?”
“Considering the amount of risks I am taking to meet you, yes, I have gone mad. Very much so! The road to Eldorado, I tell you, is full of minds, but let it known that it doesn’t bother me the least!” “Tejas, I know all that… what happened today… that you are speaking like this? Tell me, please! I am scared.”
“Hmm.”
“What hmm?”
“Okay, okay I will tell you… but why I alluded to this ‘Boscombe Valley Mystery’ is that… if you had read it you would have understood my position in a much more complete manner, what with my situation being similar to that of the innocent young McCarthy except that he was charged with a much graver crime, that of number…”
“Tejas, are you going to tell me?” she roared, evidently very irritated and rightly so, and that pleased me. There’s nothing better than to get the better of these impish girls, who usually get the better of you.
“Wait a sec., darling. Sherlock Holmes quotes in this very story that ‘circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing, it may seem to point very straight to one thing but if you shift your point of view a little, you find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.’”
“Eeeee,” she uttered, “I am hanging up, bye!” it is so funny how girls say bye at any and everything. The moment they find the situation not in their favour, they utter this callous bye and the guy, helpless, has to cry, “Wait!” as I did in this case, for he lots of things to relate.
“Okay, now I’ll be serious, senorita, you won’t believe when I tell you all that happened after your call yesterday! I was merely quoting Holmes to tell you to etch in your mind those golden words before you brace up to listen to this most interesting narrative as Holmes himself calls his cases…”
And I told her all about the lavish bestow of soda, the three M., the invention of the Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, the Pappi outrage, the guillotine, the near death experience, the miracle, and the extremely well-crafted, ingenious and what –not plot that saved the day; and I did so, as methodically and meticulously as I have told you; employing all the library that a narrator has in his hands, or say mouth, to add as don’t-tell-me’s from a chickenhearted lady listener.
“Tejas,” she said at the end of it, “Are you sure it is safe to come?” and said so brimming with concern just like she had asked me a million times before.
“How many times do I have answer that question?” I asked tenderly.
“Till I am sure it is absolutely safe!”
“Which it’ll never be and which nothing can ever be! Once cannot stop crossing roads thinking that the next truck will smash him to pulp. How many times do I tell you, one has to make up one’s mind to do a thing and once has, he cannot look left and right but stare straight into the eye of the tiger and finish his job!” “Please don’t come if you think there is risk involved!” she said, moved to tears and I could sense that.
“Are you crying?”
“No!”
”Yes, you are!” I said coolly.
“No, I am not!”
“Don’t lie, as if I am deaf! Look at he way you are talking, like a small baby. I know you are crying.”
“So what?”
“Why?”
“What why?”
“Why are you crying?”
“Just like that!”
“Ha ha ha ha, just like that!” I said imitating her tone. “Don’t copy me!” she said so cutely.
“Is there a copyright?”
“Yes there is!” she said cutely again, “But you can copy me. Special privilege,” she said like a small child.
“Oh, thank you, ma’am honoured indeed I am!”
“You should be,” she continued in her three-year old tone. “Now tell me why were you crying?”
“Is it necessary?”
“Absolutely!”
“Offo! Just like that, I was thinking… that you are taking so much risks to meet me… just me!”
“So?”
“What so?”
“What’s there to cry about?”
“There is!”
“I can’t see!”
“Because you are an idiot, dumbo!”
“That I know, you remind me regularly enough, but tell me, why were you crying?
“Offo! One gets sentimental thinking about how much you love me… that I am so lucky to have you and to think what all you have done for me!”
“Anything for you, ma’am! And, by the way, I am not doing all this only for you. Get that notion out of your head, I mean you can say ‘For us’ but not for you. And then I am selfish too. I am doing this for myself too, for I cannot go on living without seeing you for so long. And to think that your dad won’t allow you within a light year of me for as long as he whims, drives me to despair. Thus I have to do something!”
“But… please make sure you come safely, there should be no problem at your home or college!” she resumed in her motherly concern tone.
“Oh, no problems, senorita! You are saying all this when the lord (read Prof. Sidhu) has himself descended to earth and given the go-ahead… not to me, butto my dad, no problems now! The going is as smooth as a baby’s bottom!”
“As smooth as what?”
“Baby’s bottom, baby!”
“Where do you get such phrases from?”
“Oh! This, unfortunately, is not one of my inventions; I read it in a waxing salon ad, get skin as smooth as a baby’s…”
“Oh, my God!” And she giggled finally.
Good to see the rose back on your cheek, and how keep it right there; laugh and celebrity for I am coming and coming with a song on my lips and a bag on my hips!”
“Hips?”
Oh, I had to rhyme it with lips, couldn’t say bad on my back! This one’s my invention! Nice?”
“Ghastly!”
“Hey, you know what?” I asked, suddenly getting an idea. “What?”
“I have decided t write a book, a book my voyage and what all I had to do to come to you. It is so exciting.”
“It’ll be a beat-seller for sure!”
“You vet, but you know what, is has another advantage.” “What?”
“Like you are so worried, what if something goes wrong and all.” “So?”
“Now you needn’t worry; whatever bad happens, only adds spice to the story!”
“Very funny!” it is her favourite phrase.
“Not funny, look, if I come there easily and nothing prevents me, it’ll all be so bland and boring…”
“Wow!”
“Just think about it, if your dad spots us together there, and we run from him! Wow! Imagine! I run, you run with me, your dad runs after us and the book ends with us running from place to place and settling somewhere in Punjab, among the sparkling, crops, I work all day on the farms, you bring me garam-garam paranthas in the afternoon and I eat from your soft-soft hands! Isn’t it spectacular?”
“Very!”
“So don’t worry, and remember… if something, wrong does happen, it just adds fun to the story, think about it that way. Okay?”
“Hmm, but… you know what? Seriously, you can write a book. The story is not bad and then you write well.” She had heard a couple of songs I had written.
“I am serious, dearest Shreya, I intend to write soon, and these studies are so boring! It’ll be a nice change. By the way, should I keep the same names in the story or change them?”
“Hmm, change them. At least ours. Otherwise we’ll get so popular that people will hound us everywhere. After all, it’ll be a bestseller.”
“Point, so suggest the names, Madame!”
“Let us name them with T and S only!”
“Why?”
“Dumbo! Your name starts with T and mine with S!”
“Oh, yes of course! So decided, I’ll start from tomorrow, ‘The Tale of S and T’!”
“Good! And write well!”
“Yes, and you know what? It has another benefit!”
“Now what?”
“When your dad will read it, he’ll come to know how strongly and madly I love his daughter and that I can do anything for her! Maybe, he will change his opinion of me!”
“Yes! Don’t worry; he’ll change his opinion when he gets to know you better! He’d like you a lot.”
“Hope so! And yes, one more benefit from the book!” I said. “What now?”
“If someday you decide to leave me, for any reason, may be, after reading the book, wherever you are, you’ll change your mind and come back to me; reading about how much I love you and once I did so much for you…” I said laughing.
“Shut up, jut shut up, I can never leave you, Tejas, never!” “Don’t, I’ll surely die!” I said laughing again, but I was dead serious.
“Shut up, why do you have to talk about dying? Idiot. And I am the one who should say all this… maybe, if one day you decide to leave me for another girl, like so many guys do; you’d be reminded about our love after seeing your own book. Boys need reminders, not girls! So now write pakka!”
“Sure, ma’am, anyway, I was thinking… if I should ring my guitar along!”
“Not a bad idea, if it is not cumbersome!” ”A little yes, but, wouldn’t be lovely to play it on the beach, jamming with the waves?”
“It will be! I’ll love it!”
“Remember the last time I played it for you?”
“As if I can forget!”
“You looked like a Goddess!”
“And you were ‘not bad’!”
“The terrace!”
“The beautiful night!”
“Your lovely black dress!”
“Your ‘not so bad’ white shirt!”
“Sweet smell of the wet sand!”
“Lovely candles!”
“Dancing with you! Oooh!”
“And your guitar and the song!”
”Magical night, surely!”
”Don’t forget the best part!”
“Which one?”
“Orange Juice!”
”Yaaaa…”
And we went on talking about that night…
The monsoons had arrived and this time ‘betraying the unpredictability one associates with them. They have this habit of embarrassing the meteorologists, year after year, by rubbishing unabashedly all the forecasts, from the time of their arrival to the time of their departure and everything that happens in between.
If there is one season that lies right up there with the winters, or probably a shade above, is the monsoons and blessed are we all to live in this part of the world and witness its beauty.
Never is a season more welcome,. The first drops washing away the fire of the earth and bringing with them the most pleasant fragrance. Never are the colours of the trees and mud so brilliant! Never is the breeze so intoxicating! Never is the poet so inspired! Never is romance so much in the air!
I welcomed the monsoons as I always do but this time not just for the lovely showers, that rejuvenating bath in the rains, the picturesque boat in the puddle, the ideal temperature, the we fragrance and the joyous, riotous football match in rain. The monsoons this time had brought with them much more, the love of my life.
Shreya had arrived in Delhi with the monsoons on the 28th of June as they had a secret pact. And therefore the romantic weather had a never-before effect on me. You could see Tejas with a subtle smile on his lips; only when he was not singing songs; joy on his face, playfulness in his heart and a trot in his step. Life had never been better. After all, seldom does it happen that two beauties descend from heaven on the same day. The effect was so profound that even though acknowledged as the most cheerful of souls otherwise, I surprised my peers and parents with that extra dose of mirth. Time and again they would stare at me agape and utter, “What’s the matter with you, Tejas? Won a lottery lately?” and I would answer them all with a wave of my hand, “No, no, nothing of that sort, one should stay happy and cheerful and in this weather it’s the easiest of tasks!” I remember I composed ten songs during those monsoons, all dealing with nature and love and was playing guitar all the time I was not with her.
But what those divine monsoons must be remembered for is a single evening, a celebrated one. A magical evening it was…I had long wished to have a candlelight dinner with her, and I knew she would love it. I am a romantic at heart, which you must have discovered by now, and girls, you know, love these mushy things. But for all the loveliness and the romance of candlelight dinners, there is a drawback and a big one at that. one needs darkness for the candlelight to have a visible effect on the surroundings; one cannot just light candles on a bright day and feel happy that he’s had a candlelight dinner just for the record. I bet you understand what I say. I just want to express the nonfeasibility of such dinners with lighted candles in this par of the world, for girls, in this otherwise lovely part of the world, are not allowed out after the sun has set. The girl’s parents would say, “The roads are not safe.” It was, therefore, with considerable astonishment, that she exclaimed when I suggested this year rare type of dinner:
“Are you serious!”
I said I was and she asked me if I wad run to which I replied that I was not.
“Then, how come you are getting such insane ideas?” “It is not insane, it is lovely!”
“Lovely, I know, but impractical!”
“You only talk about candlelight so much… and when I think about making it a reality, you shudder. Girls are dumb,” I shot back.
“Tejas, do you think I’ll get the permission to stay out after six or seven in the evening?”
“No!” I replied coolly.
“Then?”
“What then? You don’t need any permission! When did I say you need it?”
“Of course, I need it. Now don’t suggest that I should sneak out of my window at night…”
“Shut up! You don’t even listen to the plan and go on and on,” I interrupted her.
“What’s the plan, now?”
“I don’t want to tell you, I can see that you are not interested, do what you wish to do!”
“Offo, sorry! You know I am interested. Tell me! Quick!” “Hmm! When is your friend’s sister’s wedding?”
“Fourth of July.”
“And… you have got the permission to attend it. Right?” “Yes!”
“Then we don’t need any other permission.”
I explained the plan to her and she assented on my insistence that it would all be alright. I booked a place called “Rendezvous’ for the dinner. I should rather say that Bajrang booked it for me. We once had a party on the terrace of that place and I had been smitten by the ambience. I thought that the place was fabulous if less noise was made, and I wanted to suggest to the owner to lend the place to lovers, rather than waste the space on loud binges.
The terrace was usually reserved for parties and called for a hefty sum but the owner was Tanker’s pal. I don’t know how and I don’t wish to know; he found out that there was no party on the fourth and got the entire terrace for me at no extra charge. I couldn’t believe it when he told me, but, then, Tanker has his own impeccable style. “Both of you must be alone, brother; why should morons interrupt you. I would hate that myself,” he had said to me and I was extremely pleased to have a pal like him. I had wanted open air for dinner, not one of those stifling fie stars where one longed for breath and the shattering of the sickening decorum. Besides, I couldn’t afford them.
Her friends smuggled her out from the wedding and dropped her at eight as promised and were to pick her up at nine thirty. They were hugely cooperative. All her friends wore colourful lahengas, and were a bit extra giggly and chirpy. I could only blush and smile at their teasing remarks as they called me ‘Jeejaji’.
We’ll be there at nine thirty sharp, jejju,” said one and then added teasingly, “So be done with all you have to do by then; after all, she has to change back to her lahenga and that takes time.”
I thanked them, promised them a treat, bade them goodbye and then turned to look at Shreya, who, all this while, had been concealed by the giggling girls. I would not waste much space in describing her beauty. But she had stunned me once again. I just gaped at her, as though petrified. She smiled, knowing that I had been knocked out by her spell and whispered, “Where shall we proceed?” and I mumbled something like, “Upstairs.” But I kept looking at her and she crossed her slender arms, pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and shook her head at my behaviour. “Come on, Tejas, I am not looking that good.” But she was and she knew it fully.
She wore a black dress that ended just above her knees and had thin straps. It extremely graceful. was not revealing, or provocative but
The dress had settled on her curves beautifully, highlighting her slender figure, making her look like a Goddess. The black of the dress matched with the colour of the night and contrasted beautifully with her fair arms and neck that glistened in the moon light. She wore her usual make up that consisted of a line of kajal and a touch of gloss on her lips. That was it. Her face didn’t need any more. Her silk-like tresses were open as usual, thrown back, shining silver at places. And she wore the silver ear rings that I had gifted her just the day before. For the first time with me, she wore heels and that brought her almost to my level – thankfully, not above it. She was lissome, lithe, elegant and all that.
I took her burning hand in mine and led her up the stairs, and she was surprised to see the setting. She pressed my hand, looked into my eyes and said that it was beautiful. I was glad that she approved of the place.
It was beautiful indeed, and no other word could have described it better, just like no other word could describe her better. It was a terrace and idyllic – no roof on the top, just the sky studded with diamonds. It had rained in the evening but the rain had stopped, the heavy clouds gone, to display a spectacular star-studded sky. Thin foam like clouds still spattered here and there added to the beauty. Though the clouds had made way for the stars, the beautiful smell of wet earth lingered on, wafted by a brilliant, cool breeze – the hallmark of monsoons. The moon was out too and bathed the night with its silver splendour.
There was a criss-cross bamboo fence on the border that acted like a trellis for the creepers which I thought were ivy. Entwined with the ivy were small, vivid flowers that added a splash of colour to the whole fence. The arrangement was splendid. The rest of the terrace was outlined with beautiful hedges from which purple flowers peered lovingly. I noticed how lovely purple looked with green. Love makes you love nature as well!
Out in the left corner, near the fence, were two wooden chains with a wooden table in between. On the table, two long candles illuminated the setting, and the silverware cast their light and the moon’s. I had chosen the corner as it was the most exquisite one, overlooked by a Gulmohar tree which had gained sufficient height over the years to provide a friendly shade to this corner on sunnier days. Neither was it day, nor had the sun come out for two days, yet I had chosen this nook for the beauty that the tree with its ready-to-bloom orange flowers lent to it.
There was a fountain too, on the far night hand corner, and it sparkled, too, in the silver of the moon. Nothing could be better, I reflected, and led her to the chairs. I pulled a chair for her, bowed with one hand on my middle and the other drawn out, gesturing her to sit, and said, “Muhdaam, have a seat,” and she obliged by saying a ‘Thank you, sir.’
I took my seat and looked into her eyes. Lately I had realized, she allowed me do so and her eyes smiled when I did that. Earlier she would feel shy when I tried to concentrate on her eyes and would laugh and say, “What are you doing, Tejas?” but, now, we both loved it.
“Hope the place is not bad, Muhdaam! This is all this humble block could manage!” I said.“Not bad? Shut up, Tejas! It is lovely, I told you. Like a dream,” she replier sincerely.
“See, I could not afford a fivestar for you,” I said. That had sometimes bothered me, the money issue.
She came from a much richer family and was a habitual diner at the hotels with her family. I was from a good family but we couldn’t afford fivestars, and didn’t like them either. So this money problem bothered me. I always felt I couldn’t treat her lavishly, couldn’t give her expensive gifts, couldn’t get a car to go on a drive with her, couldn’t afford balcony tickets for movies as rates had soared to a hundred and a fifty each now; in short couldn’t do anything that a modern girl would expect from her boy and she knew that. Time and again, we would have conversations about this paucity of money, and she didn’t like them. She would always say, “Who said I wanted expensive dinners and gifts?”
“But all girls do!” I would reply.
“Well I am different and we won’t have this type of talk again. If you want to gift diamonds, go, and get a new girl… You talk like this, once more, and I will stop talking to you,” and with that, the topic would be closed.
And, that is why I loved her… because she was different… because she was not materialistic… because she loved me and just me. But, in spite of her sweetness and understanding, sometimes this problem did trouble me and I had once gotten so sentimental that I wrote a song about my love for her and I intended to play it that night.
“Who said I like five star hotels?” she asked irritated. “You go there so often…” I had touched an exposed nerve, but she interrupted me, and how!
“How many times do I tell you, not to talk about fivestars and all those idiotic things, but you wouldn’t understand. How many times have I told you, I am a normal girl, who likes simple things in life? I am an average girl who likes to eat her five rupees orange bar, who likes her artificial, junk jewellery over gold and diamond. Please Tejas, understand… that I am NORMAL. N-O-RM-A-L,” she spelled it for me, “let me enjoy these things, and stop worrying about treating me like a queen. I know how much you love me and that is it. That is all I want. And I know how much you have sacrificed for me already… to foot your mobile bills and give me such lovely dinners, I won’t embarrass you by asking how much this place has cost you but I know you have sacrificed for it. Tell me, how many weeks since you saw any movie?” she roared. “Leave that!”
“Now, why should we leave that? When I say leave all your insane gibberish about money, you don’t!”
“Okay, sorry, baba, I won’t mention it again!”
“You dare do it and I’ll not meet you again. Already you insist on paying the bills every time. Can’t we go Dutch, once?” “No, I think we have talked about that enough, too. So leave it right here,” this time I roared. I was very clear on that. That was the least I could do for my princess, I thought. I belong to the school that believes in thorough gallantry. I wonder how guys can go half-half with their girls on dates. They have lost all shams nowadays. They don’t make gentlemen these days. All they make is chicken shit. Some ridiculous movement called metro-shetrowhatever-sexuality was sweeping the town and guys were doing all sorts of insane stuff like getting facials and manicures, and asking their girls to give their share of the check. The roles were shifting in this modern society and it sent in old hats like me a shiver down the spine. Whatever happened to the roughness and toughness that separated a boy from a man and, more disturbingly, to the chivalry and courtesies that we had been taught, with which a woman ought to be treated. Anyways, I was completely an antique and had made it clear to Shreya, and in no uncertain terms, that, “we might have to live like squirrels and nibble at five rupee sweet buns if I don’t have adequate money, but no way, mind you, no way, will you poke your hand in your bally purse or pocket. Do you get me?” I had asked and she had got it. She didn’t bother carrying her purse after that and thanked me for that. it was a lot of hassle, she said.
“Anyways, leave all that, but nice place, yes?” I resumed. “Yaaa… lovely sky, candles, fresh air, lovely flowers and you. All my favourites! What else do I need? Paradise. To think of a fivestar cluttered with old people who would die than raise their voice! One can’t even breathe there!” ”Exactly. Better a dhaba!”
“I swear!”
“Where one can breathe, yawn, sign or dance and even pick one’s nose!”
“Yuck, shut up!” ”And what a vulgar price to pay for a dal that my mom cooks better!”
“Exactly!”
“But to think of it, they are not that bad too and sometimes a whole lot of fun! I clearly remember a most entertaining evening at a five star.” ”Why? What happened?” she asked raising her brows. “Oh, that is an amusing story, but a long one!”
“You have a story for every occasion.”
“That’s why they call me a raconteur.”
“What’s that?” she asked cutely.
“A teller of anecdotes.”
“So tell me what happened.”
“Okay, let us order first, we hardly have one and a half hours and there are so many things to do. While the food comes, I’ll tell my fivestar tale.”
“What all things?” she asked suspiciously.
“Surprise!” I said and, with that, called for Michael, the waiter, who was told to wait downstairs until called for. He had helped a lot to take this tryst a dream and I liked him. We ordered the lip smacking dal makhani, shahi panner for me (she doesn’t eat paneer) and malai kofta for her (I don’t fancy koftas) and some lachha paranthas.
And then I told her the amusing incident, of the times when I was an impish school kid, when my tayaji had taken me and elder brother, Vineet; both of us naughty rascals, for a dinner with a haughty old man, one of those who have in their hands power to award those mysterious tenders. And one of those idiots who are inordinately fussy about trifles like table manners. He told my uncle, who is a thorough gentlemen himself, to make less sound with his spoons and in not so polite a manner. That was the last straw. Seeing he was not going to grant the contract to ym uncle, Vineet and I saw no pointing extending any further civility. Both of us dipped out hands in the gravy and started licking our fingers one by one, and flashed a smile at the old man who looked at us as if we were dirty, overflowing garbage bins. I concluded the ceremony with a - “Ma’am, your father is a real gentleman,” to his third wife, as had been conveyed to us by tayaji and at that she uttered a cry and I immediately apologized, “Oh! I am sorry, I did not know. Pardon me, I meant your grandfather,” and she eyed me like a basilisk and screeched in a rat like tone, “Heee is myyy husband!”