‘I DIDN’T!’
‘Oh yes, you did, sweetheart. She has played you, baby.’
‘I didn’t!’
‘How?’ asked Daman, still reeling from what he had heard.
‘Do you remember who told you to insert Avni’s character into the synopsis?’ asked Shreyasi.
‘Who was the first person you sent the synopsis to?’
Daman looked at Avni.
‘Now ask Avni if she had sent that synopsis to Jayanti. Ask her if it was Jayanti’s suggestion to add Avni as a character. Jayanti sold the idea to her and she sold it to you. Ask her if she sent it to her?’ said Shreyasi.
‘Did you send it?’ asked Daman.
Avni nodded.
Shreyasi continued, ‘Both Avni and Jayanti were late for that meeting, weren’t they? That’s only because they were with each other, deciding how to dupe you into cutting my character out and getting hers in. They colluded against you. Now decide who the bitch is?’
‘I just wanted the contract for you—’
‘Shut up, Avni. It’s over,’ grumbled Shreyasi and looked at Daman. ‘Jayanti and Avni had been meeting behind your back ever since the talk of the new contract came up. I was pleasantly surprised to see her name on Jayanti’s phone, to be honest.’
‘Jayanti called me!’ protested Avni but her words were drowned in sobs.
‘How did you get Jayanti’s phone?’ asked Daman.
‘Aw, baby. I like how I can still surprise you.’
Daman found it hard to breathe.
Shreyasi continued, ‘Tell us Avni if any of this is untrue?’
Words died in Avni’s throat. I did it for us. I wanted you to get the contract.
‘I will leave you guys to it. I hope you make the right decision, baby. I could have told you earlier about this but I wanted you to see how treacherous she is. I love you. Always remember that,’ said Shreyasi, picked up her bag and left.
An hour later, Daman told Avni it would be best if they broke up for a while.
35
‘We aren’t leaving this room till we sort this out,’ said Sumit, hands resting on his waist. ‘Look at the two of you. You look like shit without each other.’
It had been an hour since Avni and Daman were sitting opposite each other in Sumit’s living room and neither of them had uttered a single word. Daman tried his best not to look at Avni, who resembled death. Her eyes were red and marked with dark circles. Her hair was tied neatly in a pony. It highlighted her skin’s pallor and her painfully protruding cheekbones. She looked stripped of flesh, her wrists and arms gangly. He wondered if he looked any better. His sleep in the last few weeks had been sketchy at best. The nightmares and the nausea had been back in full strength. The bed-wetting had come back. Only this time around, sometimes he would see Avni’s face instead of
Shreyasi’s in the car, crying, laughing mirthlessly, and then dying. The doctor had bumped up his dosage of anti-anxiety pills but it only brought a few hours of sleep every day. He would spend the rest of the day walking around undead. Daman had been avoiding Sumit’s furious calls all these days but today he’d threatened to tell his parents about his three-day visit to the hospital. The maid fetched biscuits and sweetened tea. Sumit lived alone in a rented two-bedroom house, fitted with air conditioners in all three rooms, and had a full-time maid to tend to his needs. He had just paid the down payment for an SUV.
‘When’s the car’s delivery?’ asked Daman. I could have had all this, he thought.
‘In three weeks,’ answered Sumit. ‘Can we talk about the matter at hand?’
‘I need to get some work done. I will have to leave,’ said Daman. ‘I respect you for trying,
Bhaiya, but this is a waste of time. Nothing is going to come out of it.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ snapped Sumit. ‘SIT THE FUCK DOWN. You guys have to talk.
You can’t just throw it away like this.’
‘Let him go,’ said Avni.
‘Avni—’
She interrupted Sumit. ‘He’s right to do whatever he’s doing. I don’t blame him.’
‘You only did whatever you did to protect him. He has to see that,’ protested Sumit.
Daman stiffened. ‘What I see is that she went behind my back and conspired with the person I probably hate the most. And the lesser we say about Karthik the better.’ He turned to Avni. She cowered. ‘I visited Karthik in the hospital yesterday. And you know what? I didn’t feel all that bad about him. I was thinking that jerk deserved what came to him. He won’t be able to write another book for months. But you know what else I was thinking? What if he had died?’
‘It was just a small flight of stairs—’ mumbled Avni.
‘And yet he’s lying broken in a hospital bed. Would you have told me had he died? Would you have told me had Shreyasi not told me?’ asked Daman, scowling. ‘A person would have been dead because of me, Avni! I have the blood of two people who died in the accident on my hands. You almost added another person to it. You—’
Sumit cut in. ‘The accident wasn’t your fault, Daman.’ Sumit placed his hand over Avni’s to keep her from answering. ‘And let’s not speculate here. She was desperate and she did it for you.
Maybe she wouldn’t have done it had you come to me with what was happening between you and this Shreyasi. I thought she was just a troublesome stalker. And why didn’t you tell me about the anxiety attack?’
Daman sniggered. ‘Okay, so now that you know about the Shreyasi problem, Bhaiya, what have you done about it? What can you possibly do? And what exactly did Shreyasi do that is so unforgivable? Avni has done much worse!’
‘You can’t compare her with Avni. That’s—’
‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘If I were to choose between two unhinged girls I would rather choose the one who has been loyal to me for three years and the one who—’
‘Loyal? SHE’S MARRIED FOR FUCK’S SAKE! Do you understand that? I told you not to engage that girl in any conversation and yet you did!’ Sumit argued. ‘She’s insane, she’s dangerous.’
Daman rolled his eyes. ‘Maybe it’s your fault, Bhaiya. Had you given me the right email ID, none of this would have happened,’ Daman complained. ‘As a matter of fact, had I talked to her then, who knows if I would have ever met Avni?’
Sumit’s face darkened. ‘She’s here to apologize and this is how you treat her? Have you lost your mind? Who was with you when you were floundering—’
‘What she did was unforgivable,’ growled Daman.
Avni finally looked up and caught Daman’s gaze. ‘Are you talking to Shreyasi?’
‘Why shouldn’t I? She’s the one who can set all of it right. I know she would never betray me.’
Sumit looked at Daman, appalled. ‘WHAT THE FUCK—’
Avni picked up her laptop bag from the side of the table and got up. ‘Best of luck,’ she said and forced a smile.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Sumit. ‘THIS BASTARD HAS TO UNDERSTAND—’
‘He has made his decision. It’s done. I wish him the best of luck. If that’s where his happiness lies. Who am I to stop him?’
Sumit blocked Avni’s way. ‘What? What happiness? What the fuck is wrong with you two?’
‘I need to leave,’ said Avni and nudged Sumit out of the way.
Sumit exhorted Daman to stop her, to talk to her, but an unmoved Daman sat there fiddling with his phone. Avni left without a word.
‘YOU’RE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE,’ Sumit shouted. ‘Give me the girl’s number.’
Sumit walked towards the table and reached out for Daman’s phone. Daman wrested it away before Sumit could take it. Sumit asked for the phone politely. Daman got up, told him he needed to leave. Sumit tried to block Daman’s way and get the phone from his hand. Daman refused. Sumit tried snatching it away from him. Daman resisted for a bit, warned Sumit to back off but when he didn’t, he swung at Sumit’s face and got him square in the jaw. Sumit stumbled backwards but d
idn’t let up.
‘I don’t want to hit you,’ warned Daman.
He came back at Daman. Daman grabbed him by the shoulders and rammed his knee into Sumit’s ribcage. Sumit crumpled and fell to the ground. He writhed on the ground holding his chest. Sumit
tried getting up again. He hadn’t even been on his knees when Daman rammed his feet into Sumit’s chest again.
‘I won’t let you spoil the only chance I have,’ said Daman, standing over Sumit, and left.
36
‘Take a right from the next turn,’ Avni instructed the cab driver.
It had been a month since Daman and she had found his car smouldering in the parking lot of the apartment, and three weeks since Avni had last talked to him at Sumit’s apartment. He hadn’t reached out to her since. Not even a text to ask her if she was doing okay. Fuck him, I don’t need him!
Over the last few weeks for which she had been depressed, a number of thoughts had crossed her mind. The two on the top of the list were either ‘kill that bitch’ or herself, both of which she soon realized were juvenile but things she was capable of. I almost killed a man. The feeling would always remain with her. Slowly, she had felt she was losing control over her own life; she was becoming one of those spineless, weak people who subconsciously start a self-destructive life after a failed relationship. He was my first love. Self-pity and disgust had threatened to slowly consume her. The pain had engulfed her.
‘Yes, just stop there on the left. Wait for fifteen minutes,’ said Avni. ‘I’m leaving my bag here.’
She stepped out of the car and headed straight to the ward where Karthik lay. Dressed in a short red dress, she looked out of place in the hospital. A few heads turned. Amongst them was the nurse at the reception who smiled at Avni as she walked past. She doesn’t know what I did. In the past few weeks, she had often visited the hospital and loitered outside Karthik’s room, trying to catch a stray glimpse of him. Most times, he would be fast asleep, knocked out from the morphine. But today a girl sat beside him. She recognized her immediately as Varnika, Karthik’s girlfriend, the girl he wrote a few books on. They were holding hands and Karthik was laughing his head off. Far from feeling any relief from the guilt that ate through her, it worsened. He could have died. I could have killed him. She marched away from the ward, wiping her tears. How did it come to this?
When did I start loving Daman so much that I became prepared to lose all for him? After taking a lowdown on Karthik’s condition from the nurse, who called her the sweetest fan of Karthik, she walked back to the cab and left for her date.
After Daman had blocked her from his social media profiles three weeks ago, she had applied for a sick leave and started tailing him, unaware of what she wanted to get out of it. She would dress up for office, take her car, and sit in it all day with wafers, Diet coke and water, outside his house and follow him around when he stepped out. At the end of every day, she would go back home, her back crippled with pain, her bowels sick, and break down into a puddle of tears, question and curse herself, but the next day she would do the same. The first few days of following him around yielded nothing. He would stay at his apartment all day and come down only for a brief walk and smoke in the evening. Sometimes he would go to the British Council for an hour in the mornings to issue books. There were moments she even felt sorry for him, moments when she wanted to rush out of the car and embrace him. She even had a little hope. But whatever hope she had was dashed the next week when she found Daman meeting Shreyasi almost every other day.
They would go to the same coffee shops, the same pubs and the same movie halls that Daman and she used to frequent. He would even take care to shave. They would laugh, hold hands and be happy. It shattered her heart. After the fifth day, she couldn’t take it any more. I’m Shreyasi now, hiding in the trenches, looking on. I’m the stalker.
But no more. The crying, the moping, the blaming herself had to stop. This wasn’t her. Tonight would be the day she moved on and reclaimed her life. She had no tears left for him. All the anger, the rage, the despair had tapered off, leaving behind a gnawing hollowness. Tonight she would fill that hollowness. Or if she failed, at least exact a little revenge in case he cared. She deserved someone better than him. I won’t love him any more.
She was meeting a friend from work—Karan. She couldn’t tell whether Karan genuinely liked her or just wanted to get into her pants, but if it were the latter he had been at it for a really long time. For months, Karan had timed his coffee breaks to sync with hers, offered her chewing gums after lunch and shared his phone charger so many times that she didn’t get hers to office any more.
His workstation had shifted too, from being at the far end of the room to now just two seats away.
He had lost two staplers and countless pens to Avni who would borrow and lose them. Not once had he complained. In the past few weeks, it had been he who’d double-checked Avni’s presentations or ironed out the errors before she mailed them to the seniors. Last week, when she told Karan they should go out some night, like a gentleman it was he who had suggested coffee and not alcohol. But she had wanted to get hammered.
Karan had come dressed sharply in dark a pair of trousers and a crisp white shirt. He looked younger than he did at work, she noticed. They hugged and Karan pulled a chair for her. This is the guy who deserves me.
‘Do you want to drink something?’ Karan asked.
‘Of course, aren’t we here for just that?’ she said.
She wasted no time in getting drunk while Karan pulled out all the stops to impress her. He was funny, charming and courteous. If she had paid attention, it would have been a nice date. She didn’t listen to half the things he said but she noticed he was handsome and attentive.
‘So did I tell you he is a big prick?’ slurred Avni.
‘About ten times, yes. This will be the eleventh,’ he said. ‘Do you really think you need to drink that? You have had too much already.’
‘Of course I do! I can handle alcohol quite well. It’s him who couldn’t handle it at all,’ Avni chortled. ‘Do you know he had an accident when he was drunk?’
‘You told me that.’
‘Like he hadn’t even drunk that much. So stupid. Imagine! Now take this into consideration and tell me, do you think he really needed to break up with me?’ she asked.
‘I don’t—’
‘No, do you really think? Tell me? Tell me very honestly? Do you really think? The NATION
WANTS TO KNOW! Do you—’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘I’m fine. I am doing totally fine. You know who’s not fine? You know?’ drawled Avni.
‘Let me take a wild guess? Daman?’
‘You’re a smart man. I knew you were a smart one. I should have dated you. I can still date you.
My mom will like you so much better. You know, you’re more my type. Let’s start dating, okay? We will kiss tonight and make it official? Now you may think it’s a rebound but it’s really not. Okay?
And I promise,’ said Avni and put her hand on her heart. ‘I promise—’
‘You’re embarrassing yourself. I should drop you home,’ insisted Karan. He waved the waiter for the bill.
‘Are you trying to get rid of me? Are you? Why does everyone want to get rid of me?’
‘I’m trying to save you from the embarrassment that will come tomorrow. I’m booking an Uber and I’m dropping you home. Do you think you can go like this to your place?’ he asked.
‘Of course! My parents accepted Daman! That low-life writer with no future! Why wouldn’t they accept me drunk? Pfftt. Stupid question! I’m rethinking my decision of falling in love with you.
Should I? Should I not? Should I?’ She swayed in her seat as she went on. ‘Should I? Should I not?’
As Karan cleared the bill, Avni remarked, ‘Daman would have never been able to afford this.’
She got her voice down to a whisper and said, ‘Shhh. Don’t tell anyone but he’s broke. But maybe
/>
Shreyasi will set everything right.’
‘Sure,’ said Karan, getting up. ‘Do you need help?’
‘No!’ protested Avni. As soon as she got up, she stumbled and Karan broke her fall. By this time, the entire restaurant was looking at them. Avni flashed a middle finger and thrust out her tongue towards them. She wrapped her hands around Karan and kissed him full on the lips. Karan flinched and swayed out of the way. Avni pressed on, scratching his neck and clawing at him.
Karan leant out of the way but this time Avni dug her teeth into his neck. Karan wrenched himself free. ‘You don’t love me?’ she asked.
Karan didn’t answer. He held her strongly by the arm and led her through the door even as she flailed her hands around and shouted repeatedly, ‘I love you! I love you! I love you!’
37
Avni asked the cab driver to park the car a little way from the parking of her office. The driver asked if he should stop the trip and bill it.
‘Give me two minutes?’ She looked at her office building. She took a few deep breaths. She took out her phone and typed the keywords in Google’s search bar. It prompted suggestions in a blue font. She had used these keywords every hour for the past few days.
Indian drunk girl in restaurant
Drunk girl funny
Drunk girl funny restaurant
Drunk girl proposal turned down
Drunk girl Delhi kiss
A few links had thumbnails of a grainy picture of her. It was a video of hers from the restaurant, taken by random strangers and stitched together by someone well versed with an editing software, that had gone viral, and had been shared across social media platforms and aggregator websites.
All for a laugh. They reduced her entire personality, years of being a model citizen, a brilliant student, a stellar employee, a good daughter and good girlfriend, to a video and a few unfunny