‘Love is conversation.’
‘Conversation? Are you trying to be intelligent?’ I smirked.
‘Firstly, I am intelligent, and second, no, it is just something that I feel.’
‘I don’t want to come across as stupid, but I don’t get it.’
‘Look, Deb, right now, we are into all this, you know, trying to take each other down, getting our hands in all the strange tingly places all the time, but with time it will all go. You will start using Viagra; I will not be thin or hot or anything. Sex won’t be as much fun as it is right now.’
‘They have Botox and slimming packages. We can start investing right now.’
‘Shut up, Deb. That’s not the point. The point is that we will still be together, and not for this. The only thing left then would be what we have to say to each other. People’s hips give way, they lose their teeth and they are still in love. And they are definitely not having sex, or going to parties any more. They talk. The only thing that remains is conversation. That is all that will remain.’
‘You have a point there.’
‘So, what is lust?’ I asked. I really had no interest in the conversation, I just really wanted to hug and sleep tight. Making love to Avantika was always intense; it was like she had been raised by wolves.
‘Lust is lust! It’s what we feel after the first kiss …’ She smirked.
‘And it has nothing to do with love?’
‘Yeah … pretty much,’ she said.
‘But how do you get to the lust part if the love part, that is the first kiss part, doesn’t happen?’
‘Don’t get into technicalities now,’ she said.
‘…’
‘…’
We set the alarm clock to fifteen minutes before the exam time, and slept. I dreamt vividly of a time when we would be talking to each other, endlessly, slurring in our toothless speech.
32
‘How did it go?’ asked Avantika, smiling.
‘As if you don’t know.’ I winked.
We had cheated. At the one-hour mark, Avantika and I had met at the water cooler and she had dictated the answers to the questions I hadn’t cracked. It was a ritual for us. It had started with the first exam we took at MDI, and that’s what we did in every exam thereafter. A few people had caught us on various occasions, but Avantika was too smart, and too good-looking to be indicted in a cheating case.
‘What plans tomorrow?’ I asked. It was the last exam and, as it happens, one just stops giving a damn—however, not Avantika, who treated it as seriously as any other exam.
‘We decide tomorrow?’ she said sternly.
‘Okay.’
Kabir passed us as we walked to our own rooms to catch a little sleep. He smiled at Avantika and she smiled back. Kabir used to sit right in front of Avantika and they had quite a lot to chat about just before the exam. They were neck to neck till the last semester but Kabir now had a healthy lead of 0.2 grade points over Avantika. That smug, brilliant bastard.
‘How did his exam go?’ I asked her.
‘What do you expect? He is Kabir.’ She sighed, surely thinking of whether she would be able to beat him and obliterate his lead. ‘Now go sleep, Deb. See you in the evening. And no touching today. We screw up the last paper every time.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
‘We will see.’
33
‘Hey.’ I swung open the door and it banged on the wall of Avantika’s room.
‘Shhh …’ She put a finger on my lips.
Avantika was on the phone and talking very formally to a heavy male voice on the other side of the phone. She talked about financials, return on investments, portfolios, the kind of stuff I knew nothing about. I sat in the corner waiting for the awesomely boring conversation to stop clawing at my brain. Fifteen minutes passed and she was still yakking on the phone and now discussed every mundane detail about MDI. I logged into her Gmail chats and started reading her chats.
Chat with Deb. (250 lines)
Chat with Deb. (323 lines)
Chat with Deb. (298 lines)
Chat with Kabir. (150 lines)
Chat with Kabir. (50 lines)
Chat with Deb. (345 lines)
Curious and jealous, I clicked on her chats with Kabir. My heart pounded. They talked about nothing controversial. Their chats revolved around classes, careers and projects. Harmless. I sighed. There was nothing that offended me. Kabir had called her ‘baby’ a few times, but he called every girl that. So … it was harmless. I felt a little bad since I had checked her chats; we never shared passwords to our mail IDs or social-networking accounts.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked. I hadn’t noticed that she had disconnected the call.
‘Nothing.’
‘Deb? Reading my chats? How rude!’ she said and closed the window.
‘Why? You have something to hide?’
‘No. I do not. But if there would have been something to tell you, I would have told you by now. And if I have not, then probably I don’t want you to know. Get it?’ she said. She spoke so quickly, that all I could make out were her bright pink lips moving. And that in itself was not that bad a sight.
‘In short does that mean you want to make out right now, right here?’
‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘By the way, where is your book?’
‘Book? What book? Easy one tomorrow. Just go through it once and tell me what’s in there,’ I said. ‘Last exams are not meant to be studied for, everyone knows that, right? It’s also in the student handbook, I think.’
‘I am so not going to do that. You know I can’t concentrate with you sitting there doing nothing.’
‘I will sit here and read something else. That should work, right?’
‘Maybe.’
‘GREAT. Oh, whose call was it?’ I asked her.
‘Kabir’s father is floating a live project in MDI. And we are doing it together. It’s a little tough but I think we will manage between ourselves.’
‘What? Ourselves? Ourselves as in? You and Kabir?’
‘No, just you and me. Kabir is just getting the project floated in our college. This project would look good on our résumés,’ explained Avantika.
‘I am not interested,’ I said.
‘What? Don’t be silly, Deb. It isn’t for me. I already have a placement. I don’t need it. It will be good for you. And since I am in it, you don’t even have to work for it.’
‘I don’t want to have to do anything with him. I hate him and I’m not doing anything for his father,’ I snapped.
‘Baby, I know you don’t like him, but this is for your own good,’ she said.
‘I don’t want it. Period.’
‘Can we talk about it later?’
‘There is nothing to talk about. If you want to do it, go ahead,’ I said angrily.
‘I just wanted it for you,’ she said; her mood dipped and shoulders slumped. She started marking her book, while I lay in the corner, fuming. The whole Kabir thing was driving me crazy. I knew she was mine, but I could not help it. I sat there telling myself that she was mine, no matter what came her way. Thinking like that helped—a little. I did not study much that day. Avantika taught me a little and I don’t remember how the exam went.
We never did that live project. It was foolish of me, and as usual, jealousy got the better of me.
I was always the possessive, angry boyfriend.
34
‘Sad crowd!’ I shouted in her ear, her eyes glued to the big projector screen, which covered half the wall in front of us. The screen was hazy and not really great. It was Liverpool vs Arsenal. She was an Arsenal fan, and it would be over her dead body that she would ever miss a match. I wasn’t a big fan—neither of the game nor of the team. Her ex-boyfriend was an Arsenal fan and she had got this obsession from there, a part of her I’m not sure I liked very much.
‘Shut up,’ said Avantika, and stuffed her mouth with the fried burrito she had ordered and
washed it down with a tall tumbler of iced tea. The score line was tied and, from the little I knew of football, it was a tight match between evenly matched players—all of them with enviable bodies, waiting to be showed off to the boisterous, zombie-like crowd and the cameras after a sensational goal. I dared not disturb her. The last time I made fun of an Arsenal player, she didn’t let me touch her for a week.
‘Fu—’ she stopped herself from shouting aloud as the Liverpool goalie made a valiant save just before half-time.
‘Liverpool is going to suck them out in the next half,’ a guy in a Liverpool T-shirt said out loud. It was aimed at Avantika. I put my hand over Avantika to calm her down as she puffed like a bull marking a matador waving a red flag at her. Last year she had thrown an ashtray at a guy who said Arsenal was full of ‘pussies and unnecessarily expensive players’; we were thrown out of the place. This time she let the guy go with just a subtle expression of displeasure—the middle finger. He reciprocated with a more vulgar rendition of the same.
‘I so want to knock the head off that guy,’ she said.
‘Calm down. Just a game!’
‘Deb, this is the last time I am telling you. It is not JUST A GAME!’
‘Fine. It is a religion.’
‘Good,’ she said.
‘Hold this.’ She gave me her handbag. ‘I will just be back from the washroom.’
She asked the waiter where the washroom was and I imagined her smashing the mirror in anger. The half-time analysis ended, the match started again and I could hear shouts of ecstasy and anguish. Avantika took more time than usual; she hated to miss the first few minutes after half-time—the time most prone to slip-ups. I called her and her phone rang in her handbag. I took the phone out and started to fiddle with it, bored with the match proceedings.
The sounds dimmed as I flicked through her cell phone, through the picture gallery, and then, the text messages in her phone; the shouts drowned out, and I could hear myself screaming, loud and silent at the same time. My hands clenched around the phone as I stared at the picture of Kabir and Avantika, with Kabir’s arm around her and Avantika looking at him lovingly while she clicked the self-taken picture. It took them five attempts to get the picture right and the failed attempts were in her phone too; and in all of them Kabir’s arm was around her and she was looking at him, unblinking and happy. The text on the same date from Kabir said, ‘I wonder why I didn’t find you earlier,’ and Avantika had replied with a smiley face and a heart smiley.
It felt like someone had punched me hard in the guts, and I puked them from my mouth. My stomach churned, my head spun and blood rushed to my face. I got up from my chair, paced around my table and waited for her. I wished I had not looked into her cell phone. I tried hard to calm myself down. I sat down, opened that picture and kept the phone on the table.
‘You look … strange,’ said Avantika, as she walked up to me, smiling.
‘What’s this?’ I said and pushed the phone in her hands.
‘What?’
‘The message! What is that? Care to explain, Avantika? The pictures?’
‘It’s nothing …’ she stuttered.
To see her stutter just deepened my suspicion. I was losing my head. It was not the picture, but the smile, the loving gaze that hurt me more.
‘When was this … tell me … Please tell me, Avantika,’ I said, barely keeping myself from shouting.
The guy from the other table shouted ‘SLUT’ to his friends. I looked at him and he looked away.
‘I … Can we go?’ she asked.
‘Go? Where?’
‘Can we just go back to college? Will explain there?’ she said.
I picked up my things and we left the place. I strode down to the car, leaving her far behind. I fumed while I waited for her to come to the car. The car whizzed dangerously through the narrow lanes as I pushed the pedal as far as it could go. A few people escaped from being crushed beneath the wheel, jumping out of the way just in time.
‘Calm down,’ she said.
‘Calm down? After seeing this? How the fuck can you let any guy talk to you like that? And Kabir? I was there killing myself after you left me and this is what you were up to.’
‘Deb …’
‘You were smiling and taking pictures and getting all mushy with him! You were storing it for posterity? Your sweetheart and you? There are not one or two but five pictures,’ I grumbled and the old, decrepit engine moaned.
She put her hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off. ‘Can we just talk about it?’
‘We are TALKING about it!’ I shouted and parked the car with a screech outside the hostel. I muttered to myself, but I’m sure she heard it because I intended her to, ‘I think we are over.’
35
We were in her room again.
‘TALK,’ I shouted.
‘There is something I need to tell you,’ she said.
‘What?’
Now that she had something to tell, I really wished she had nothing to tell. I prayed and hoped there would be no story behind those pictures and the offhand message.
‘I kissed him,’ she said feebly.
I wished she had never told me that; I wished I hadn’t heard it because I felt my world crumbling. It broke into small, tiny pieces beyond repair; it lay in front of me, broken and ridiculous and hopeless. I wished she had lied. The last few days had been good, why did she have to tell me? She could have just buried that deep inside and we could have gone on with our lives.
It didn’t sink in. I asked again, hoping she would tell me she was kidding. ‘You did WHAT?’
‘I kissed him.’
I breathed deeply, taking care I didn’t pass out on the floor. ‘When? How? Why? Tell me EVERYTHING. NOW.’ I was crying now—angry, betrayed and in tears.
‘We went out one day …’
‘TELL me the FUCKING date, Avantika.’
‘12th October.’
‘So this is what you were goddamn doing when I was not there? Kissing other people and marking the dates on the calendar. Who else did you kiss?’
‘I was a little drunk.’
‘Little drunk? We know you do not fucking get drunk, Avantika.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Sorry? What is it? Oh. WAIT. You got bored of me, didn’t you? You were just looking for a break, weren’t you? Malini just gave you that chance, didn’t she?’
‘It’s—’
‘You just kissed once?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was he a good kisser? Was he?’ I said, and paced around the room. My head started to burst. I clenched my fist and wanted to hit something, maybe Kabir, maybe her, maybe myself.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t ask me that.’
‘DON’T ASK ME THAT? What does that mean? He was good, right? Why don’t you fucking tell me? What else did you do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? I don’t believe you! You fucking slept with him, didn’t you?’ I accused her. ‘I always knew there was something going on between the two of you. The question is WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BEFORE THAT YOU LIKED HIM?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Avantika, burying her face in her palms.
‘You fucking took two years to get over your previous guy and this is how long you take to get over me? A week passes and you’re already sleeping with someone else?’
‘I wasn’t trying to get over you,’ said Avantika, now crying, her shoulders jerking, her body quivering.
‘Then what the fuck was it? What the fuck was it? Swear on me you didn’t do anything beyond the kiss?’
‘Deb!’
‘Just do it.’
‘I swear.’
I threw her phone against the wall. ‘Say the whole thing, Avantika.’
‘I swear nothing happened beyond the kiss, Deb. Don’t make me do this.’
‘Was he nice? Better than me?’
‘Don’t ask me that, Deb,’ she said. She had slumped to the ground and she put her he
ad between her knees.
‘Why? Why the fuck not! I can fucking ask you anything,’ I shouted. ‘You’re answerable to me. You’re responsible for this mess. You’re responsible for me, damn it.’
‘I was drunk and I don’t remember how the kiss was,’ she cried. ‘For heavens’ sake, don’t do this.’
‘I will. I fucking will. So how was it? Huh? HOW WAS IT? Did you like the touch of his skin against yours? Did you want him next to you?’ I taunted her and I wasn’t sure whether I intended to hurt her or hurt myself.
‘It was different,’ whimpered Avantika, still sitting on the floor, crying.
‘Different?’
‘I don’t know, Deb. I was drunk and frustrated. It just happened. It just happened.’
‘You were getting back at me by kissing that son of a bitch? Or did you always like him? You did, didn’t you? That bastard always had a hard-on for you for as long as I can remember and you just gave into the temptation the first chance you got.’
‘But …’
‘Go to hell, Avantika! Go! Sleep with him. I do not fucking care. I am ending this … right now, right here! I don’t want to see your face ever again. I can’t even see you right now, Avantika. You disgust me. You know what? Mittal was right. I should have listened to him when he said it’s better to be the guy who sleeps with girlfriends of other guys, than be the boyfriend who gets cheated on. Malini is so much better than you. Just GO AWAY, Avantika.’
‘But, Deb …’
‘I don’t want you in my life. Go and sleep with him. Why did you come back, Avantika? To hurt me?’ I said and walked towards her. ‘Mittal was right. I should look beyond you. You are a waste of time. You’re a fucking waste of time.’
I slammed the door as I left. I felt like crying aloud and banging my head on the wall till it split open—do something that would make the hurt go away. I wished she would cry behind the door I had just closed on her; I wished she would suffer; I wished she would miss me and never be loved like I loved her; I wished she were dead. I texted her the last part.