To escape, I was catching up on my reading and wishing that my friend would call me and relieve me of my duties. Pushkar’s call was thus a relief in its own way.
“Have you thought about the story?” He got straight to the point.
“Yeah. Let’s meet again; I will go through the process with you.” I said, thinking about another excuse to catch up on some Rum. It would also give me an excuse to run away from the start up thing.
“Okay. My place again? Saturday.” He was as anxious as a teenager on prom night.
“How about tomorrow? I will bring the bottle; can you cook up some chicken?” It sounded like a fucking date.
“Okay. Text me when you are about to reach.” He abruptly ended the call.
**
My friend Eti would tease me around with gay insinuations, had she heard our conversation. It’s not about being gay I would argue later with her, it’s about male bonding. There is nothing like two men, lonely and silent, cheering to Old Monk and chilling out. By my second visit, I was warming up towards Pushkar. Although he was an idiot to go around writing stories for a girl, he did know how to cook and how to make a peg. He was also a chilled-out guy to hang out with.
“My friend Eti would say we are gays,” I told him.
“Is she your girlfriend?” he asked me.
“If you mean, we are lovers, no, we are not.”
“How often that concept fails.” He remarked, staring at the door.
“I know. Sometimes I wish me and Eti would do it. But then… you know how it is.”
“You don’t want to ruin your friendship and the crap.”
“Right. Sex would only complicate things.”
“At least she would be sure, that you are not gay,” He laughed, passing me the fried potatoes he had made.
“Yeah, right. So, did you and Neelima do it?” I asked, rushing towards the juicy details of the story already.
“You mean drank together like this?” He replied playfully.
Of course, he wanted to skirt the question. I was stupid enough to bring it up.
“Yeah. That’s what I meant. You, She, Old Monk, and some chickens altogether.
“She loved Antiquity. Monk is not for girls. We would often buy Antiquity or Blenders which is my favorite.”
“Careful guy. If any of those feminists hear you, they will burn your room with Old Monk.”
“Right. So, does Eti drink?”
“Like a fish. I can’t hang out in a bar with her due to fears of enormous liquor charges.”
“Ha ha. Neelima never drank much. She enjoyed it mostly because everyone around her liked to drink. Some of her friends were near alcoholics.”
“But, mark my words Pushkie Boy, it is more fun to have a male drinking buddy than a female one. What say?”
“Pushkie” His eyes grew extremely sad. I knew I had hit a raw nerve.
“She always called me Pushkie.” He sighed. I sighed as well. These moments are so difficult.
We don’t say anything as minutes’ pass by.
“Tell me about Eti.” He prods.
I can see his reluctance to discuss his love. He is a private and shy and this must be killing him. To discuss and lay bare his love in front of a stranger. Yet, he is willing to do it, for a girl who used to love him. At least he believes she did. Who are we to say anything otherwise.
“Eti and I are friends of convenience,” I am surprised by my honesty. I don’t want to give him an artificial answer.
“When she gets lonely, she calls me up, when I feel lonely I call her up.”
“And how often is that,” he asks
I weigh my answer well, before responding,
“Quite often. We empty liquor bottles, order takeaways, even went on a vacation once.”
“Where did you two head off to?” He seemed to be genuinely curious.
“Pushkar. From the place where you got your name. She was going out with her friend. But three days before the trip, the girl found a boyfriend and went along to the hills with him for weed and sex. When Eti called me up to tag along, I wanted to refuse, I had no interest in Pushkar, but then I had nothing better to do, so went along.”
“From your voice, it seems to be a special trip.” He was looking at his glass this time, still not looking towards me, as if something prevented him doing that.
“It was. We had the same room but no sex. I told her I was interested. She said she wasn’t. We both took it well. I think that made us grew more close. To be comfortable with rejection. I joked her that she had pushed me into depression. She apologized and bought us a bottle of Vodka. To depression, she cheered and we spent the night, sitting across each other, glasses in our hand. It was a beautiful night.”
“Sex is highly overrated.”
“And liquor highly underrated.”
We refilled our glasses and cheered to that.
**
Pushkar
Let’s not start from where it all began, once upon a time. Let’s start with the end. But then there would be no incentive to read the beginning. The middle part gets tiresome at times. You get a gushing start, you are hooked up to the story, and you want to see how it ends. But the plot drags on. Whatever, let’s get this over with.
Bars, Pubs, Taverns, drinking places, are one standardized institution across the globe. A story is being ended or started in such a place all the time. Like it happens in so many bars across the globe, this love story also ended in one. She was at Tito’s Bar in Goa where she realized she no longer loved me. I mean drinking is such underrated activity. More things happen over drinks than happen in an average Indian TV soap opera. So, she is there in Goa, hanging out with her girlfriends, partying, and all and bam she takes the decision. I want to end it all with him.
There, that’s your ending. At least part of it, where the bond of love is so carefully seared cut by one person. It takes two to tango but one is sufficient to end it.
Does love make one cynical? She asked me. “Because you are like such a negative person at times”
No, I told her. “Love has so much hope; such longing that it can never make you cynical.”
“So, you mean, there is a shortfall of love between us that leaves you bitter?”
I never answered her question.
Neelima
The truth is that two parallel lines can just pretend to meet at the horizons, which are still far far away from each other.
Our First Big Fight
He was coming down from Ambala to Delhi and he texts me just two days before. I loved him, I do, but you can’t just drop everything to rush into arms of your boyfriend. I had plans with Priya. We were to sit together and go over through an assignment. And this guy he lashes out at me for I would not cancel my plans to go out, spend the day with him.
I was totally pissed off by his way of reacting to this. He would not talk to me for the next three months. Can you believe this guy? He literally shouts at me and then just goes cold and would not talk to me. Only when he feels like, he will come back to me.
It is times such as these that I feel I am dragged into a relationship I don’t deserve. None of my friends like Pushkar. I have to live in this constant state of pleasing him and expecting disapproval from my friends. It is always easy for men to blame girls for every failure in the relationship.
Pushkar
I asked her once, “Why don’t you write your own story yourself?” We were chatting over an online messenger.
“You are an amazing writer. You know what a big fan I am of your writings.”
“Well, about that, Pushkie. I need to tell you something.” She typed back.
“What?”
“I lied to you.” She said.
“What do you mean you lied to me, you never lie to me,” I told her.
“Look, don’t get hyper or angry, okay? All those poems and write ups which you on my short-lived blog were not mine.” Something in the way she typed, made me believe t
hat she was not joking about this.
“They were yours. What are you talking about?”
“No, they were copied.”
“Not possible. I would have known. You would have told me.” I was perplexed by the way the conversation was going.
“Sorry, Pushkie. Don’t get mad okay.”
“No, why would I get mad. Gosh, that was years ago, you could have told me anytime.”
“I knew you would get angry.” She already sounded hurt.
“But I am not angry. Did you really lie to me? All those posts, poetry and prose were copied?”
“Yeah.” She wrote back in an instant.
“I don’t even know how to react.”
“Don’t ’get angry okay? I am sorry”
“But why did you do it then? Does not make any sense. Why copy paste something on a blog and pretend you wrote it?”
"You don’t get it. Do you? I wanted to impress you. You are always on this intellectual moral high ground. You are such a good writer. I wanted you to see me in good light.”
“Gosh.”That was all I could manage to reply.
“I got to go now. Bye.” And she signed off the chat, with me looking over the screen to make sense of what I just read.
The thing about lies is that you can never be sure about them. Was she lying to me then or was she lying about it now? We see what we want to see. I don’t think she lied to me then. But then why would she lie to me today?
“Are you recording our conversations on your phone?” He asked me.
“You don’t expect me to write everything you are speaking. Do you?”
“No, I was just asking. So, you are finally convinced, you will be writing the story.”
We were lounging in his room as usual, but today there was no liquor. Pushkar was not interested, and I had too many drinks the previous night. Eti had called and well, you know what happened next.
It was a warm Sunday and we decided to hang out at Pushkar’s place. Eti wanted to meet him too. I don’t think she would be able to, judging by her state last night. I made some tea for both of us, eager to show off the one thing I could pull out in the culinary department.
“How do you plan it all out?”
I did not have a clue as to how will I bring out the story. I still thought it was stupid. But as I gorged on the pasta he said was last night’s left over, I did not want to break the guy’s, heart.
“We will go with the flow. I am sure your girl won’t be very judgmental.” I sniggered.
“Shut up.” He admonished me.
“Tell me the how you met story.”
Just a look at the poor fella and I know how hard this is for him. Well, he asked for it, didn’t he?
“Okay so how long you have known each other?”
“More than 7 years.” He replied.
“Shit, that’s way too long man. No wonder you are so screwed.” I chuckled aloud.
“What was the first thing you noticed about her?”
“Her eyes. I remember, when I looked at her for the first time, I could not see her face completely. It was just half of it. Her eyes, her large black eyes, filled with innocence and love just looked at you like a doe would look over the landscape. Dazzled and curious. Such is the beauty of her eyes.”
Pushkar
I don’t know what happened that night. A colleague had called in for a tasting of a new whiskey he had tried. I went along to this place I have never been but knew to be a popular drinking place. The whiskey was very good. But like I said, I don’t know what happened to me. Might be the cold winds, which hit straight to my head and soothed my brain.
I drunk texted her. Yes, I did that. This was way after we had stopped talking for good. We had bid goodbyes already. One of the things she always said, was to see how drunk I can get. She said, I was too controlled and rigid at times and would love to see a drunk side of me. I would just laugh off at her suggestion, telling her that even though drunk, I will be still clear headed enough to do anything foolish.
But this time, I really did something foolish. I wrote to her
“I was in the market near your house today. And was thinking about you. I just sometimes wish I had more money. Maybe then you wouldn’t have gone far away. Anyways sorry to disturb you.”
She replied me back –
I am amazed how sure you are about being able to win my respect with money. I see no correlation there and that's the probably the most absurd logic I have ever come across. I always had respect and adoration for you whether you believe it or not. Yes, you have certainly encouraged me at various points in life, never have I denied that however there have been also been times when your demeaning jokes and statements have made me feel as if my existence is purposeless. Whatever the case may be, you may call it truth, I can stick to geometry, but the truth really is that two parallel lines can just pretend to meet at the horizons, which are still far far away from each other.
I typed back
“Really sorry to disturb you. We should not continue talking. Goodnight.”
She was quick in response -
“Don’t be sorry that you texted me at the first place. In fact, I feel pity for myself that despite spending the major parts of my growing up years with you, all I hear is that none of those memories are sweet anymore. I feel that I have wasted all this time with a person who will always have hatred in his heart for me no matter what I do. You are right there is really no point in continuing this conversation. Wounds are just becoming fresh and fresh with nothing to heal them. “
So, this is what she thought of me? That I have hatred towards her? Here I am begging strangers to work with me for something she wanted and all I get is that I have hate in my heart. This is exactly what makes me wonder if all that time was worth it. The life I spent with her, was the best time of my life. But did I get a raw deal out of it? And what was that about sweet memories? Did she really mean anything by that? Surely not. She thinks she has wounds, she should have seen my scars. That she is the one who won it all and then claiming to be a wounded victim is a sad story I feel. She was not the one who got scarred, ignored, or thrown away as an embarrassment.
Listen to colors they will guide you
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
When all you see are old sheets of paper,
Autumn leaves and bubbly bees,
Buttercups or the sun rising up,
Lemons or some yummy curry;
All you can see is yellow
Need to have a warm heart - smile at the situation
And all your problems shall leave you. Immediately.
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
When all you see is money,
Loads of trees or piles of peas,
Grass or grapes, threads, and drapes
Tea gardens in monsoon rains;
Then all you see is green
People are getting jealous all around, for sure – no worries, though!
You are safe, for green stands for safety and protection
The protection of the earth – the greatest of all.
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
If the sky is giving the necessary hints,
Signals of oceans or navy soldiers,
Be it the cold moon, or the dancers’ tune,
Or even copper sulfate in the science lab-
All you then see is blue
Then probably you are the stablest person
Your emotions, though, might not be in the same condition...
But since blue represents depth, deep down you know
That someday things will automatically turn out to be good
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
When all you hear are Christmas carols,
Hand full of rice - some naughty mice,
Milk all around or silk deep down,
Or maybe the falling snow,
All you then see is white
Just be cool, calm and composed!
And problems shall leave you in a state of complete pure
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
When you see danger signs,
Cut your thumb- spill blood,
Infinite roses - sleepy glasses of wine,
Chilies or the famous Red Riding Hood,
All you then hear is red
A little worrying a little difficult to handle,
But love shall reach out soon, to take your heart away from you
Show the passion-and sweep you off your feet
Listen to colors,
They will guide you...
When the food in your fridge starts rotting,
Your friends are found plotting,
The witches are out with their allied magic,
And life is nothing but tragic!
All you then hear is black
There might be an absence of light for some time,
but never forget, a dark evening is always followed by a dusky dawn
The broken pieces of the mirror will come together, just wait for a little bit of time
So, what’s your color telling you?
Pushkar
Is it sounding too much of a mish-mash to you? Am I going too fast for you?
Let me tell you something about her first visit to Goa. She loves Goa. She has been to that place many times now. She has a special fondness towards South Goa.
I still remember the first time she went to Goa. Now we were at this stage where you want to hold hands but she is being demure about it. And then she goes to Goa for the first time supposedly for a college educational trip with her girlfriends.
I was looking at the pictures she had taken during the trip thinking of the compliments I had to note. I was not allowed to like or comment on her pictures on Facebook as Neelima felt embarrassed if I did that. What would her friends think about it? To them, I would be a stranger, an unknown man commenting on her posts. It was okay anyway as we caught up on messengers and phone and there was often little left to say on social media anyway.