When Only Love Remains

  Shekhar tightens his grip around Devrat’s neck. Devrat flaps around a like a dying fish. Quite ironical because Shekhar shouts, ‘You fucking machher jhol!’

  Devrat wonders why that is an insult. It’s like him calling Shekhar butter chicken, which is quite delicious. And if Devrat dies today, he will never get to eat it again.

  ‘TELL ME! DID YOU FUCK HER!?’

  ‘YES. HE HAS,’ shouts Avanti. ‘Now let him go.’

  And just like that, he lets Devrat go, who slumps to the ground and mutters to himself, ‘I have?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Shekhar. But I think you need to go now. Whatever happened between is now over and you need to understand that,’ says Avanti.

  Shekhar is walking around in circles, holding his head, cursing, sometimes half-charging at Avanti as if he’s going to hit her but then he doesn’t. Avanti is looking straight at him, unfazed, unaffected. She’s looking at Devrat who’s slumped on the ground, crawling towards the ironing board. ‘All my friends were right about you. You’re just a fucking slut!’

  Avanti wants to ask which friends is he referring to here, but that’s not a discussion for now. Bitches, she thinks.

  ‘I’m sorry, Shekhar,’ says Avanti. ‘But thank you for what you did to me.’ She’s looking at Devrat who has the iron in his hand, but he’s still on the ground, flapping, battered and bruised.

  ‘Thanks? You slept with him! YOU. SLEPT. WITH. HIM. LOOK AT HIM! He can’t even bench press.’

  ‘That he can’t. But I didn’t sleep with him.’

  ‘You didn’t? But you just said you did?’

  ‘I’m just seeing him. If I had to sleep with anyone, I would have slept with you,’ says Avanti. ‘Look at your biceps. It’s the only thing every girl wants. Your bench press is 210 pounds and you can squat a baby elephant. You’re every girl’s dream.’

  Oh. Now she has tears. Devrat meets her eyes and she meets his. She’s not smiling, but her eyes are. And while Shekhar paces around a little more, clenching his fists, Avanti winks at Devrat. Avanti is surprisingly herself right now. She mentally pats her back and says, you go, girl!

  ‘Fuck, yes! I’m alright. It’s you who’s wrong,’ grumbles Shekhar. He’s in a war-like pose. He punches the wall. ‘I should have never started to date you. I was so happy with my girlfriend. I should have stayed with her. You’re just a fucking slut. . .’

  Avanti frowns. She fires her opening salvo. ‘You never told me you had a girlfriend!’ Suddenly, every instance of Shekhar shouting on her, abusing her, picking a fight with her whenever he used to doubt her loyalty comes rushing to her head.

  ‘Oh yes, I did. I HAD A GIRLFRIEND. And I’m still dating her. And thank God I’m still dating her because you’re a piece of shit!’ shouts Shekhar.

  Avanti’s face clenches and she looks straight at Shekhar. ‘Get out.’

  ‘What?’ asks Shekhar. Even a dimwit like Shekhar knows now that he has overstepped limits.

  ‘Get out, Shekhar! I don’t want to hear a word now.’

  ‘You will kick me out? I will go out myself, you slut.’

  ‘You call me that once more, and I will call the police,’ grumbles Avanti. She takes a few steps towards Shekhar and she’s not kidding. She’s positively furious and is looking straight into Shekhar’s eyes. He’s quivering like a little puppy (on steroids).

  ‘Avanti.’

  ‘Get out, Shekhar,’ says Avanti, who turns away from him and sits on the bed. She’s holding her head in her hands now. Shekhar takes a few steps ahead and keeps a hand on her shoulder. And almost instinctively, she brushes away the hand and slaps Shekhar and bellows, ‘Go away, right now!’ And then as if possessed by a foreign force she gets up and pushes a squealing, begging Shekhar out of the room. She slams the door on his face. ‘FUCK YOU, SHEKHAR. FUCK YOU! I HOPE YOU DIE, YOU ASSHOLE!’

  She comes back to help Devrat to the bed. He’s still clutching the iron he meant to hit Shekhar with. ‘You didn’t tell me you were dating Hulk Hogan’s cousin.’

  ‘It’s the ex-boyfriend I have been trying to get rid of,’ says Avanti and whips out the first aid kit from the drawer of the washroom. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I just like how it all feels like a movie. Though I feel like I might never be able to walk again without a wobble.’

  Avanti chuckles. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  ‘Is it not? He was built like a Transformer. Though I think I would have been able to smash his face with the iron had I been able to get on my feet. I wish I could have helped you a little though.’

  ‘You already did help me a lot. You just didn’t notice,’ she says and looks at him. ‘Okay. It is a little bad.’ Avanti wipes the blood off of Devrat’s face. ‘At least your nose isn’t broken.’

  ‘That’s sort of the high point of my day. I’m so glad your Hulk boyfriend didn’t break my nose for sleeping with you. Oh wait! I didn’t sleep with you!’

  ‘Stop making me feel guilty!’ protests Avanti.

  ‘Fine. Fine. I was just taking your case. But really, it hurts like a bitch,’ grumbles Devrat.

  Avanti asks him to hold the cotton to his nose so it stops bleeding. She bandages his head up.

  ‘So it clearly showed you were never in love with him, but why did you turn so scary at the end? You have heard the term, “Maata ghus gayi usmein”? You were a bit like that. Possessed,’ asks Devrat.

  ‘I never really had the courage to do it before. I’m not sure how I got the courage today,’ says Avanti. ‘I think I’m a bit of a freak magnet.’

  ‘I concur,’ Devrat tells her.

  ‘Oh shut up, Devrat. You are, too. I saw the picture of you and Karthika and she looks every bit a freak like Shekhar.’

  ‘Umm . . . I never dated her.’

  ‘Liar,’ says Avanti, a bit jealous.

  ‘No, seriously. It was just something.’

  ‘I don’t want to know, but yet I want to know. Tell me the short version of the story,’ says Avanti.

  ‘But I did get dumped recently and that led to Karthika.’

  ‘Not that short,’ says Avanti.

  ‘The girl I loved went off with the rich guy. leaving me poking at my memories of her so that I could feel . . . I don’t know . . . alive? She was all I was holding on to. He was everything I wasn’t. To avenge that I started sleeping with Karthika.’ Avanti frowns. Devrat continues, ‘I had no idea why she was sleeping with me and did not ask. I had no inclination to know about her. I don’t know why that happened. That in short, is my story.’

  ‘You’re damaged, Devrat.’

  ‘So are you,’ says Devrat. ‘It’s all hiding behind those layers of make-up and the pretty clothes you wear.’

  ‘I’m not wearing any make-up.’

  ‘That’s why I can see the scars.’

  Fifteen

  It’s four in the morning. They’re sleeping now. Or at least lying down, trying not to sleep, hoping that their time together could stretch out infinitely. Devrat’s head is bandaged, one of his eyes is snapped shut and he’s three feet away from her. The lights are out except for the little red light of the television, but it’s enough for Avanti to see Devrat’s face and it’s beautiful. He’s like a little child, a lost one.

  ‘You can sleep,’ says Avanti.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking of your ex-boyfriend.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘What else would I think about lying three feet from you?’ asks Devrat and Avanti blushes.

  The more she sees Devrat in pain, the more Avanti falls in love with him; there’s something deeply romantic about a hurt singer, or writer, or painter. Not so much a hurt engineer or a hurt investment banker. Every few seconds she panics thinking Devrat’s asleep but settles down when she realizes that he’s still all ears and looking at her.

  ‘You have your f
light in four hours,’ says Devrat.

  ‘You didn’t have to remind me of that.’

  Avanti wants to hold his hand, wrap her fingers around his, and stay in bed and watch him sleep.

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  Avanti blushes. ‘You’re just saying that.’ Avanti doesn’t know why she just said that. She has always known that she’s beautiful and every time someone repeated that, it was just a validation, not a discovery, but this time it was. She feels beautiful.

  ‘I’m sure you get that a lot.’

  ‘But somehow it never meant so much,’ says Avanti.

  And just like that, they fall asleep. It’s one hour from her call-time when she wakes up and finds Devrat sleeping. He’s curled up in a ball and his face is smiling. Avanti has always hated mornings, and her job as a flight attendant has only made her hate mornings more, but this morning she loves. Only she knows how hard she has to restrain herself from not running her fingers over his face.

  She’s late. She jumps off the bed, quickly puts some water to boil in the kettle, stuffs all her clothes in her suitcase and forces it shut. She needs a bath but for that she will have to leave Devrat’s side. She spends a few minutes looking at him, not wanting to go, but then decides to take a quick shower. In the shower, she burns herself. She wipes herself and rushes out, already missing him, knowing that she would regret the few minutes she didn’t spend with him.

  She’s in a towel and she wets the wooden flooring. Devrat is awake and he’s looking for something in his printed boxers. Avanti laughs seeing those boxers and Devrat is startled. He turns and looks at her.

  ‘I was looking for my jeans,’ he says. He’s trying hard not to look at Avanti, who’s wrapped in a towel, somehow feeling sexy now. He’s still looking at her, blushing, trying to tear his eyes away but failing. And it only makes Avanti feel better about herself.

  ‘Oh,’ says Avanti and then points to where his jeans are lying on the floor. She keeps standing there, hoping Devrat would look at her again, and he does, sort of a stolen glance, and Avanti feels strangely turned on knowing that Devrat’s looking at her. It makes her feel beautiful, wanted. She doesn’t want to go, instead she wants Devrat to look at her, fantasize about her. How can you be so dirty in your head?! Avantika is asking herself. Embarrassed and blushing at her own thoughts, she walks back to the washroom with her clothes, replaying the moment in her head when Devrat looked at her.

  She changes into her uniform and puts on her make-up, trying to perfect it, yet not look like part of a homogenous group of flight attendants.

  She finds Devrat on the table, drinking coffee, reading a newspaper and for a moment is thrown two decades in the future when the hotel room would be a house and Devrat would be a grumpy forty-year-old man with failed dreams of being a musician, and she will be an old, yet slim, irritating wife. ‘Perfect,’ she thinks.

  Devrat turns to her. His eyes are on her for a few seconds too long before he says anything. Avanti wonders if he’s still imagining her in a towel and she feels a little more alive.

  ‘You look great,’ says Devrat.

  ‘I look like every other flight attendant. An exact copy.’ Avanti frowns.

  ‘We are all meant to be exact copies of each other,’ he says.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I just thought I would say something deep and profound and I came up with this but it isn’t deep and you look amazing.’

  ‘You should fly with me some day,’ says Avanti. ‘You will find five exact copies of me.’

  ‘I refuse to believe that.’

  Avanti believes in every word Devrat says. Although she tries to refute them and contest them, inside she hangs on to every word he’s saying. And today, now that he has said it, she feels different, beautiful and amazing.

  ‘Do you want to eat something?’ asks Avanti.

  ‘Sure. Let’s order?’

  ‘There’s a free breakfast buffet downstairs.’

  ‘I LOVE free food,’ says Devrat and jumps from his chair.

  ‘That’s some enthusiasm.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t there be?’ asks Devrat. ‘When there is free food in buffets I feel like I’m ripping off somebody even though I’m not. So today we will try to feel good about ourselves while we try make the hotel go bankrupt due to our demonic early morning hunger.’

  ‘As you say, sir.’

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sir.’

  They smile. Avanti lines up her suitcases near the door, does last minute checks on the room, takes out the hotel key card from the slot and they leave for the breakfast buffet.

  It’s lavish and there’s food for the entire world, from the entire world, and more.

  ‘I don’t want to sound greedy, but this might be the best day of my life!’ says Devrat who piles his plate up with sushi, something he had only had once in his life and never again because it’s too expensive.

  ‘I’m glad I can help,’ says Avanti. She doesn’t eat much. The Towel and the Stolen Glance incident is still weighing heavily in her mind. The next time it happens, if there’s a next time, she has to be at her fittest. She’s already Googling Hotel-Gym-Routines. Her plate only has small pieces of pineapple and watermelon, both of which she’s sure has more water than anything else.

  ‘I think I’m full,’ says Devrat. His plate is still full and he has hardly eaten. ‘I’m not used to food.’

  ‘As in?’

  ‘I’m used to cigarettes.’

  ‘You haven’t smoked one since you met me.’

  ‘I figured you wouldn’t like it,’ says Devrat.

  ‘You can have one if you want to.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ Devrat’s looking at Avanti and, frankly, it’s too much for her too take. In the past twelve hours, Avanti has realized that Devrat isn’t too fond of eye contact and she’s happy about that because every time he looks straight at her, she’s a molten mess of nerves.

  They eat in silence for Avanti doesn’t want to break it to him that she needs to go and it’s slowly killing her inside.

  ‘You need to go?’ asks Devrat.

  Avanti nods.

  ‘Right now?’

  Avanti nods. ‘I have five more minutes to check out.’

  Devrat and Avanti look in the direction of the check-in counter where a few flight attendants, in the same uniform as Avanti’s are checking out of their own rooms.

  ‘When will you be back?’ asks Devrat, playing with food, not eating.

  ‘Not this month for sure. I don’t have any day free. Pretty busy month, flying wise. Probably next month.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Cool.’

  The conversation is depressing. Avanti feels like a mom leaving on a business trip, and Devrat’s acting like a little child who’s sad but he’s mature enough to understand and can’t throw a fit and cry and lunge at Avanti’s feet.

  ‘I think you should leave,’ says Devrat. ‘You will be late.’

  They both get up from their chairs, and drag their feet towards the check-in counter. They look away from each other and shift in their places uncomfortably.

  ‘I will see you next month then,’ says Avanti, more to herself than to Devrat.

  ‘Cool.’

  They exchange numbers, the colour of their faces gone.

  ‘You can join them. I will leave,’ says Devrat. Avanti nods and they don’t hug. They awkwardly shake hands and Devrat heads towards the door.

  Avanti looks at him disappear down the stairs, into a cab, and onto the streets of Kolkata. She can’t help but cry.

  Sixteen

  Devrat is in the cab looking at the number he’s just saved. He opens Whatsapp and searches for Avanti’s picture in her contact information. There’s a wait before the pi
cture uploads. Avanti is in her uniform, smiling, and the picture seems to have been taken inside the aircraft. He’s staring intently at the picture, as if hoping it would magically get him inside the picture. The phone starts to ring though but it’s not Avanti. It’s Karishma and her daily call to check whether Devrat is still alive and depressed, rather than drunk and dead.

  ‘Hey! Open the door! I’m standing outside. All your shitty neighbours are staring at me as if I’m a prostitute!’ barks Karishma.

  ‘I’m not home. I will be there in . . .’ he checks his watch. ‘Thirty minutes.’

  ‘Shit. Thirty minutes! Where the hell are you? And how many times have I asked you to keep a key on the window sill? Why can’t you remember that?’

  ‘I forget it intentionally. Because what if you enter with your own key some day and find me naked?’

  ‘Ugh! Disgusting.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘You seem happy today,’ remarks Karishma.

  ‘I’m not happy. I’m sad. I’m almost depressed. It’s a good kind of sad. The kind of sad I was when I saw Free Willy escape into the wilderness.’

  ‘I don’t get what’s that kind of sad. Wait. What happened last night? Did you get some action?’ she asks.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘In a hotel room.’

  Karishma wants to sound concerned but her enthusiasm is too overwhelming. ‘What! With who?’

  ‘Someone who really likes my music.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s Karthika or I will puke. I have seen her naked pictures and I don’t want that image in my head again,’ grumbles Karishma.

  ‘No, no! It’s someone else.’

  ‘Who? Did you sleep with her?’

  ‘Yes, I did sleep with her, but nothing happened. We just slept. Though I did see her in a towel even though I tried not to and she looked beautiful. Like if you kind of grind Scarlet Johansson, Sonakshi Sinha, Katrina Kaif and Jennifer Lawrence into a fine paste, put it in a cauldron, boil it, distil all the good parts and put the concoction in a girl, you will get her.’