Sorting Out Sid (3 page)

When in doubt just bitch about the party
–
that always got the conversation rolling.

‘Yaar, can you believe this Aditi? Who listens to bloody ABBA any more?’

Neha’s eyes widened slightly. After a pause she said, ‘Actually, this is my CD
–
I thought it would be nice for all of us to listen to some old music for a change.’

Sid’s could feel his ears turning red all over again. ‘Of course … good idea!’

He knew there was no retrieving the situation, and so he said nothing more about the subject. Neha was still gazing at him coolly, and he now felt pressurized to say something else. Safe topic, safe topic, he told himself. Something that Aditi had just mentioned. Ah, yes.

‘So you’ve been in Bangalore for a while, right?’ he said.

‘All my life, in fact.’

‘Really?’ Sid couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘You don’t look…’ He paused uncertainly, realizing he might just be on the verge of putting his foot in his mouth again. What was he going to say now? He didn’t want her to think that he was surprised because she looked so different from his idea of someone from the south
–
as if he would have expected her to wear that curly hair of hers in oiled pigtails or something.

Neha’s mouth twitched a bit and then she volunteered, ‘Well, my mother is from Bangalore, but my dad was from Coorg.’ Ah. That explained her unusual looks.

‘Oh, so you’re part Coorgi,’ he said, relieved that she didn’t seem annoyed at him.

‘Yes, but it’s not called Coorgi. That’s just the language. The people and the place are both Coorg.’

He racked his brain to remember something relevant. ‘So Coorgs … they’re supposed to be partly of Greek descent, right?’

‘That’s right.’ She smiled. ‘Warrior background. Greek features. Long and bumpy-nosed in some cases.’ She indicated her nose, and for the first time he noticed the small bump halfway down her nose. She continued, ‘But people think we’re supposed to be tall.’ She grinned and shrugged. ‘Too bad I get my height from my mom.’

He couldn’t help grinning, liking her for the way she made fun of herself. He knew that he himself was proud and sensitive about his own looks. A thought struck him. ‘Hey, so where’s your husband?’

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said, ‘We’re separated.’

Just when he thought it was going well
–
typical. Instead of backing off, Sid found himself continuing to blabber, ‘Ah! Separated
–
is it? As in not by the distance between Bangalore and Delhi but probably you mean really separated, as in no longer together, right? Oh!’ He resisted the urge to smack his face with his palm. He was going to kick Aditi for putting him in this situation. Where
was
she? He heard himself say, ‘I’m married too. But my wife and I are still together. Oh, but she’s not here tonight, of course.’ For some reason he thought it necessary to clarify, ‘She had an office thing going on, though she really wanted to come and be here with me. We have a blast when we go out together, but tonight it was just not possible because … you know, but still, yes, we’re very much together
–
been together for fifteen years, actually.’

Neha had been listening intently with her head tilted to one side again which he found very distracting. She waited patiently for him to finish, and then nodded and said in a serious tone, ‘Heartiest congratulations.’

She continued to nod her head, now to the music, with a sort of half-smile on her lips. Sid decided to break away from her before he messed things up any further.

‘Listen!’ he said, standing up, suddenly. Neha stopped bobbing her head to the music, and looked up at him enquiringly. ‘I think I’ll go down for a smoke. Also, I need to park my car somewhere else.’ He knew he didn’t have to keep
talking but having embarrassed himself so much already it was a compulsion now to explain his every action and thought. ‘There’s this garish yellow car I’ve parked a little too close to, and I think the owner will probably start squealing soon about not being able to get in
–
there are a lot of snobs who live here, you know.’

Neha didn’t say anything but her smile widened and she batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him.

Sid felt the blood drain right out of his face and collect at the tip of his ears. ‘So,’ he said weakly, ‘it wouldn’t happen to be your car, right?’

She said nothing but moved her head forward slightly, raising one eyebrow in an eloquent gesture. As his shoulders sagged, she added brightly, ‘And … Sid, I’ll be one of the
snobs
moving into this community soon…’ The expression of horror on his face seemed to add to her amusement, ‘… and I really hope I’ll be seeing lots more of
you
around here.’ She seemed unable to control herself now and began shaking silently. Throaty giggles escaped her, and then, that laugh of hers started up again.

Once again people were turning towards the two of them. He felt rooted to the spot because a part of him wanted to just watch and listen to that laugh. But he had to get away from her somehow.

Krish sauntered up to the two of them and said, ‘Is Sid telling you a joke, Neha? Funny, isn’t he?’

Krish was an easy-going man whom Sid had always liked despite the fact that his burly six-three frame always gave him a complex. Right now, Sid was so glad to see him that he reached up to him with a ‘Heyyy, Brother!’ and an enthusiastic hug that almost knocked the wind out of Krish. Too late did Sid realize
that he usually greeted Krish with manly handshakes, and not bear hugs, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

Neha’s laugh had slowed down enough for her to respond to Krish, her amused eyes still on Sid. ‘A joke? Several jokes, actually.’

She looked all set to start laughing again so Sid hastily told Krish, ‘Was just going down, man
–
I’ll be right back.’ He left the two of them and bolted out the door.

In the cool night air, it took a few desperate puffs of smoke for him to calm down before he could even think about moving his car. He went over to his WagonR and squeezed into the driver’s seat, keeping as much distance as possible from the yellow car that belonged to ‘That Girl’. He revved up the engine and backed out slowly. He drove around for the next few seconds, looking half-heartedly for another parking spot.

Then, with an air of determination, he strapped on his seat belt. Who needed parties, anyway?

Some nights, bed was clearly the only place for him.

3

Domestic Bliss

S
id knew it wasn’t real, but he wasn’t going to allow that to bother him too much.

He was standing there on the stage, dressed in his sharpest suit, and had just finished telling a really funny joke. He had the audience in splits, rolling in the aisles. He’d had this dream before, but this time there was an interesting variation
–
this audience consisted only of beautiful, naked women, breathless with laughter and clearly waiting to mob him after he finished his stand-up act.

Why would he ever want to wake up?

‘WAKE UP, SIDDHARTH’

His eyes snapped open. Mandira was standing by the bed, glaring at him. With effort he propped himself up onto his elbows. If she had called him Sid like everyone else, he would have cracked a joke about the movie
Wake Up Sid
, but he was all too aware that the fact that she was calling him by his full name meant trouble. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, and said groggily, ‘I’m up, I’m up. What time is it?’

Mandira just sighed and started flitting around the room, picking up random objects and replacing them in a harried
manner. Sid glanced at his phone, 7.10 a.m. It wasn’t that late
–
his alarm had only gone into snooze twice thus far. And that always annoyed Mandira –that he could ignore his phone alarm any number of times until he felt truly ready to get up and face the world. He shook his head trying to get his dream out of it. He then noticed that Mandira was fully dressed for work, wearing a peacock-green salwar suit that looked brand new and fit well on her slim figure. She was looking nice, he thought, and he was just about to compliment her when she curtly said, ‘I need to leave early
–
important presentation. You need to get up now
–
make sure to let Sunita in when she knocks. And remember to tell her not to cook dinner.’

‘Why no dinner tonight?’

Mandira shot him an irritated glance, and he felt his own irritation rising. No one deserved to be rudely snapped out of an interesting dream, and to be treated with such hostility on a Monday morning. She said slowly, in the manner of someone explaining something to an errant and particularly slow four-year-old, ‘Because, Siddharth, we agreed that we would have dinner with Vikas and Sunny tonight
–
remember?’ She turned to look at herself in the mirror, examining her big black eyes done up with kajal and added, ‘If you can take time out of your busy schedule, that is.’

Aha
–
so that’s what it was, she was still bugged with him for going to Aditi’s party. That evening it had all started with an argument about some inane thing which he didn’t even remember now, a rather common phenomenon of late, and she had claimed she wasn’t feeling well, adding that he could go ahead without her if he liked. It was only afterwards that he realized what she had really meant was that she expected him to stay home and take care of her the entire evening so
that they could make up. He had tried to tell her that he would have, but he had taken her literally when she insisted she was fine and only needed a little rest. Why couldn’t women bloody say what they really wanted, instead of making you guess things all the time?

‘I’ll be there,’ was all he said now, keeping his tone neutral. He really didn’t want to get into an argument
–
both of them had busy days at work. Besides, he thought a trifle bitterly, talking never sorted out anything for anybody.

He really didn’t understand why they had to hang out with Vikas and Sunny so much. Vikas was one of Sid’s closest friends
–
you could say they had been in the chaddi-buddy category in college, especially if you considered some of the racier incidents in the hostel. Still, it seemed nowadays that they were doing this foursome number almost every other night. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Mandira and he seemed to get along a lot better with other people around. They were a far more bubbly and ‘together’ couple in public than they were in private. He sighed in a resigned manner
–
at least the conversation was more light-hearted when the four were together.

At home these days, discussions invariably led to an argument. Well, Sid thought determinedly, they had been through so many ups and downs over the last fifteen years, and this was just a slightly extended ‘down’ phase. Besides, maybe this was as good as any marriage ever got.

Why did anyone ever get married, anyway?

A brief memory from their early days together at Delhi University came back to him
–
they were in the college canteen and he was regaling her, his senior by two years, with imitations of their economics professor and more studious classmates. She had laughed till tears came to her eyes, tossing back her beautiful long black hair. She had caught hold of his arm, begging him to stop for a minute to let her catch her breath. He still remembered how that first touch had him feeling all hot and cold. And now? He couldn’t even remember the last time they had actually touched. Their sex life had gone downhill over the last few months. No wonder he had been having so many inappropriate dreams of late. He was sex-starved. Who could blame him?

‘See you at eight then.’ Mandira picked up her bag and headed out of the room. She called back over her shoulder, ‘We’ll meet directly at Vikas and Sunny’s.’

She slammed the door shut behind her with unnecessary force, and the sound made Sid cringe. ‘Bye,’ he mumbled, adding sarcastically, ‘sweetie-pie.’ He sank back into the bed and pulled a pillow over his head, willing himself to get back to the nice dream. In about four and a half minutes, just as he was drifting off again, the doorbell rang. He sighed and glared malevolently at the ceiling for a second. The maid was here.

Time to start Monday.

By about 8 a.m. Sid had finished his morning cup of tea and was feeling almost human. He got ready for a shower, humming to himself. The mornings that Mandira left earlier than usual for work were actually kind of pleasant. He had the house to himself, apart from the quiet part-timer that she had hired who stayed out of his way except to hand him his tea and lay the table for his breakfast.

He picked up his favourite large dark-green towel out of the cupboard where it lay neatly folded, all soft after a wash. The bathroom was done up with light-blue tiles, slick silver fittings and was spotless. He had seen living rooms that looked
less posh. There were definite advantages to living with a woman and Mandira was particularly conscious about keeping the place looking nice. He decided that he should be more grateful for having her in his life. Sure, they had a few issues, but he needed to remind himself more often about some of the good things about being married. From now on, he vowed with determination, every time I think about Mandira I will remember our bathroom. No, wait, that didn’t sound too good. Scratch that.