Sorting Out Sid (2 page)

Aditi’s continued scrutiny of his face was driving him nuts. He decided to resort to joking. ‘So since my wife is busy at work, are there any hot chicks I can meet here?’ He leaned over and leered at her, adding, ‘Besides you, of course?’

It worked. Aditi laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah, watch it. Krish is around. And oh, don’t try to flatter your way out of the situation, Mister. You’re late, you forgot and…’

‘Hey, I’m really sorry about that, yaar.’ No posturing this time
–
his misery was genuine.

Aditi squeezed his arm and grinned, and he knew he was forgiven. She was as quick to forget as she was to flare up. ‘Never mind. There are some people I want you to meet. Especially this friend of mine from Bangalore
–
I’ve told you about her, right? Neha?’ She began leading him towards a girl sitting on the sofa when the doorbell rang again. Aditi stopped in her tracks and Sid almost bumped into her, ruining the effect of the cool walk he had put on while following her. She doubled back past him to the front door, saying, ‘I’ll be right there
–
just go over and say hi to her, no?’

Sid abandoned the cool walk and headed over in a normal fashion to the girl that Aditi had been making a beeline for. She was in conversation with an earnest-looking bespectacled young man and sipping from a tall glass of Coke, which he presumed was spiked. The first thing he noticed about her
was that she was rather small. An unusual-looking little thing, he thought as he took in her sharp-featured face with high cheekbones and a long, prominent nose. Her skin was fair, practically glowing; her make-up had been applied, he noticed, liberally yet tastefully. Her shoulder-length curly, black hair was stylishly cut to frame her face, giving her a pixie-like appearance. Interesting, he thought, but she wouldn’t ever make it as a model given her size. You wouldn’t call her petite
–
no; in fact, she was sturdy and well-endowed as revealed by her low-necked, sleeveless purple blouse. Not that he was looking or anything. The blouse was teamed with a flowing white skirt, and she had around her neck a chain of closely strung together, large white beads. He decided that she wasn’t his type. But the overall effect was striking.

He stopped right in front of her and the bespectacled young man, but neither seemed to notice. He cleared his throat
–
meeting people for the first time always made him a little nervous. And right now, he somehow found himself even keener than usual to make a good first impression.

He stuck out his hand to her and said in a deep voice, ‘Hi, Neha, I’m Sid.’

Neha didn’t seem to hear Sid over the loud music
–
she was facing away from him and concentrating on what the young man was saying. However, a moment later, she did acknowledge Sid’s outstretched hand - by distractedly placing her glass in it. As he stood frozen to the spot, holding her glass, she glanced up with a quick smile and said in a clear, penetrating voice ‘Harish Bhaiya, thodi si aur ice please.’ She then turned her attention back to the young man.

Sid’s face turned red, flushed with embarrassment. Harish Bhaiya was Aditi’s Man Friday. He was a thin man with
lanky brown hair and a faint moustache, and Sid knew he looked nothing like him. Yet, this rude and uncouth woman, this complete stranger, was pretending to have mistaken Sid for him. He was on the verge of sputtering with indignation when the real Harish entered the room from the kitchen with a large tray of drinks and ice. Sid saw that Harish’s hair had been oiled back to look slicker than usual, perhaps in honour of the occasion. Harish’s torn jeans and blue checked T-shirt definitely looked a lot like what Sid was wearing. He also noticed, for the first time, that Harish even had a tattoo on his forearm
–
of course, it wasn’t a cool, intricate Black Panther like his. It was pale blue and said Harish Yadav in Hindi. Still, there was no mistaking it. Tonight, of all nights, Sid looked like a Harish.

After a couple of seconds, Neha seemed to realize something was amiss, probably because the earnest young man was now shooting confused glances towards Sid over her shoulder. She looked up again, this time more carefully, at Sid, who stood there clutching the glass. She clasped her hand over her mouth and stood up to face him, her eyes wide-eyed in horror. He had been right
–
even in fashionable three-inch heels, she stood a good head shorter than him. Never mind that she had just made him feel about two feet tall.

‘I’m so
sorry
,’ she breathed. ‘I thought you were … you see, he … oh shit. I mean, I’m really sorry.’

Sid might have believed her except for the fact that her horror was already fighting a losing battle with her sense of humour. She seemed to have made up her mind that one way to look at this was that it was rather funny. She started off slow, with poorly suppressed giggles, but was soon in the midst of musical peals of completely uninhibited laughter at a
volume rather disproportionate to her size. Despite the loud music, people heard her and turned around, and many slightly bewildered grins went around the room. No one actually knew the joke, but Neha’s laugh was very infectious.

That she was laughing at him did not come in the way of Sid being fascinated by her laugh. He waited politely for it to subside, but it didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon. Finally, there was a bit of a lull during which Neha wiped her eyes and tried to catch her breath. Sid took the opportunity to say with all the panache he could muster, ‘So, as I was saying … I’m Sid, not Harish. And you are perhaps, Kanta Bai?’

Neha had almost regained control at this point, but Sid’s wisecrack set her off again. Sid watched as she threw her head back helplessly, her face now flushed completely red. But this time it was much more gratifying, considering that she was laughing at a joke he had cracked. He was feeling friendlier towards her by the time she caught her breath and straightened up to face him one more time. ‘I’m really sorry…Sid,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Of course, Aditi’s told me a lot about you.’

‘Oh, has she?’ said Sid, half-pleased and half-wary. You never knew with Aditi. He decided to go with the polite, standard response, ‘Likewise
–
she’s told me a lot about you too.’

‘Really? What did she tell you about me?’

Sid was flummoxed. Neha was waiting intently for his response, her head tilted to one side, gazing at him with big brown eyes done up with purple-blue eye shadow. He did recall Aditi mentioning Neha’s name a few times but he couldn’t for the life of him now recall the specific things that she had been gabbing about. So he smoothly lied, ‘Oh, of course, you know, that you’re a really good friend of hers.’

She continued to look up at him with her head tilted to one side. Sid looked down to avoid her eye, and racked his brain for something else to say. He then caught sight of the bulge in Neha’s tummy.

Oh, he thought, okay. Another one bites the dust. Out loud, he said, ‘And of course she told me that congratulations are in order!’

Neha narrowed her eyes. Sid was dimly aware that someone had come up behind him and was nudging him in the ribs. Aditi? He didn’t know why she would first get him to strike up a conversation with someone and then interrupt immediately. She had absolutely no manners sometimes. Well, she could wait. He didn’t notice that ‘
Dancing Queen
’ was now fading out rather quickly, else he probably wouldn’t have posed his next question to Neha quite so loudly, shattering the sudden silence in the room.

‘So! When is the baby due?’

2

Nice Not Knowing You

I
t seemed to Sid that his question was ricocheting off the walls of the now silent room as he and Neha stood there staring at each other. Without looking around he was aware that every head in the room had turned to see who had been shouting. Neha’s cheeks, already pink with rouge and the flush of her laughing fit, managed to turn just a shade pinker. She glanced down at her belly involuntarily and Sid realized he had done something unusually asinine, even by his own standards.

Aditi shot sharp looks around the room until one by one people started to pretend they hadn’t heard anything and looked away. Aditi then smoothly jumped into the silence between Neha and Sid.

‘Sid, Neha already
has
a baby, over a year old. I mentioned that to you, remember?’

Sid’s ears were always his biggest giveaways
–
they now felt hot, on fire, and he knew they were flushing a deep shade of beetroot. Even as the words came out of his mouth he knew how pathetic an attempt at recovery it was going to sound.

‘Of course, of course, I know that
–
I know all about the baby. I was simply congratulating her for having had him, and…’

‘Her,’ said Aditi pointedly.

‘Her, of course…’ Sid went on, noticing Neha was beginning to look amused again. ‘… and you know, for having … delivered so well.’ He cringed inwardly as he heard himself blather on. ‘I was only asking when is the baby
due
to come here tonight.’ He put on a surprised look. ‘Wait a minute! You thought that I thought she was
pregnant
? Ha ha ha…’ The weak laughter died on his lips as he caught sight of Aditi’s face.

Aditi finished giving him her most withering look, then put a comforting arm around Neha’s shoulders, saying, ‘You know, sweetie, people continue to think you’re pregnant for a long time after you’ve delivered
–
it’s just so tough to lose that belly.’

Sid and Neha glanced down at Aditi’s flat belly. It was clear that she was trying to be nice but Sid thought it was just making things worse. Neha, however, seemed to have recovered already, an easy smile coming over her face. She shrugged and remarked, ‘I guess I should start cutting back on the calories now, huh?’

To his chagrin, Sid realized that she seemed to be addressing this question to him, of all people. What the fuck was he supposed to say now? He stood there, mouth opening and shutting like one of those goldfish in aquariums, as he considered and rejected all possible responses.

Aditi turned her head and called out, ‘What, Krish? Coming, Sweetie…’ To Sid and Neha she said, ‘I’ll be right back, guys.’

Aditi took a few brisk steps and it was at the kitchen door that she realized that someone was close on her heels. She whirled around and snapped, ‘What?’

‘Don’t leave me, Adu,’ Sid said, panic-stricken. ‘I just called a woman I’ve never met before
fat
.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Aditi admitted, adding, ‘why are you such an asshole?’

‘Yaar, hello, wait a minute,’ said Sid indignantly. ‘
She
called me Harish-bhaiya
–
did you see that?’

Aditi narrowed her eyes. ‘So is that why you insulted her? Was it deliberate?’

‘No!’ Sid sputtered. ‘It’s
your
fault
–
why did
you
tell me all the people with kids had left the party?’

‘Why didn’t
you
tell me your
brain
had left the party?’

‘Don’t go,’ he pleaded. ‘You can’t leave me alone any more. I don’t know anyone here, Aditi, and the first person I’ve met tonight probably wants to stab me in the eye with her fork. Actually, you know what? I think I’ll just go home now.’

‘Oh come on
–
don’t be such a baby,’ Aditi hissed. ‘I’m coming back in a minute
–
go and have some fun. Tell some people some jokes
–
you love that sort of thing. Besides, you should really go and make it up to Neha. She’s a great person
–
I thought you guys would hit it off. Go talk to her.’ She turned away from him and then turned back to say, ‘Just try not to ham, for god’s sake.’

‘I never ham!’ said Sid to her retreating back. He reluctantly made his way back to where Neha was now sitting alone, gazing at the plate balanced on her knees in a cool, meditative manner. He slowly lowered himself onto the sofa next to her, fidgeting a bit as he racked his brain for a safe topic of conversation.

Audiences he could talk to; in fact, he often regaled people with funny stories
–
he usually had them in splits within seconds. But that was ‘Performer Sid’. Putting on an act wasn’t all that difficult; one-on-one conversations, however, were a different story altogether
–
particularly with women, and particularly with women you had just called fat. Sid decided that the only way to proceed would be to not think about it. Just be spontaneous, be witty, come on, be ‘Party Sid’, he egged himself on.

‘So … hi,’ he said in a suave manner as if he were meeting her for the first time in the evening.

‘Hi,’ said Neha.

They didn’t speak for a few moments
–
thankfully ABBA started up again
–
another vile song, ‘
Mama Mia
’ or something. He was still trying to come up with something to say when he noticed Neha was holding the plate out to him.

‘Nachos?’ she said.

For a split second he considered making a joke along the lines of ‘Sures, let’s dances’, but rejected it. Wordlessly he took one Nacho from her plate and chewed it in a nonchalant manner, starting to feel very uncomfortable under her cool gaze. Why was she observing him so closely as if he were an interesting specimen of insect life? And where the hell was Krish with that beer?