The Homing Pigeons... (21 page)

Radhika

I
was still undressing on that Saturday evening when Abhinav called on the cheap Nokia handset that could sometimes be called a cell phone. It vibrated aggressively, until it was almost ready to fall off the table. I pulled my nightie down in time to answer it. It was a US number and I immediately knew that it was him.

His voice was muffled, sounding as far away as he was and I barely made out the words.

“Yes,” I said dryly.

“Abhinav here. What have you thought?” he asked.

I fiddled with my hair. Even as a child, it was my response to nerves. I remembered when my foster mother had to oil my hair to get rid of the knots in my hair after the board exams.

“About what?” I asked, knowing exactly what he wanted me to think about.

“About our relationship. Are you coming back?” he asked. This was the attitude that I hated about him. The tone of the question was demanding, as if he were my Lord and Master.

“No, I haven’t thought about it,” I replied untruthfully.

“I am coming to India next month.  We can do the formalities in case you think that you don’t want to come back,” he said.

“I’ll let you know,” I said and hung up.

That I would never go back to him was a certainty, then why hadn’t I said so? It could be a sense of insecurity that prevented me from stating it.

The truth remained that I would gladly jump off the eleventh floor of DLF square than go back to him. It was important that I speak to Abhinav and clarify, but even before that, I needed to speak to Aditya. I called him; it was about ten and it had been less than half an hour that he had dropped me back home after a delectable meal of Kebabs at the Jama Masjid. Jama Masjid was Delhi’s hot spot for all foods that had once walked on four legs. We had followed up the meal with a cup apiece of coffee to wash down the layer of fat that clung onto our tongues. I had a feeling that Aditya might think of me as crazy, but even then, I hit the green button on my cell phone.

“Coffee?” I said into the phone even before he had had a chance to say hello.

“Too much caffeine for one day. Tea, my place. I’ll pick you up,” he said.

I heard the honk from his car downstairs; I hadn’t bothered to change when he had said we were meeting at his place but instead just wrapped a stole around me as I rushed down the flight of stairs. I didn’t explain why I wanted to meet him so urgently again, until we were at his place.

Robin, his man Friday opened the door for us and we stepped inside. I requested Robin to brew us some tea. He looked at me, as if I were insane, but why blame him? It was July and the monsoons were back, bringing with them the
uncomfortable humidity. As if the sweat wasn’t enough, I had asked him to brew tea, when most sane people would be happy to have a frappe. Surprisingly, the weather outside was better than within. Aditya didn’t own an AC, not that I did, and it just made sense to go out.

“Let’s go upstairs, it’s much better up on the terrace,” I said. We  climbed  the  dimly-lit  flight of  stairs  to  the  terrace with tea cups in our hand. I wasn’t sure how to bring up the topic. That I would someday have to bring up this topic was a certainty and yet, I was so unprepared. Abhinav’s phone call
had been such a catalyst that I still had no inkling of what I was going to say to him. I just waited for inspiration to strike me, but before that I had called out to Robin to make us another round of tea. Out of nowhere, I told him about the phone call.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked me.

“I am. I can’t even fathom going back to him” I said.

“Then, tell him that,” he said.

“I will, but that’s not the reason why I called you,” I said. He looked at me, puzzled. He had become my advisor and my agony aunt, so when I didn’t want advice, he must have been bewildered.

“I called you to ask you if you still love me enough to forgive me and take me back,” I said.

I should have said this a long time ago, but something within me stopped me. Maybe it’s just difficult to accept that you are wrong, even when you have known that yourself, all along.

In contrast, he didn’t hesitate, “I do, and I was always here. Only you went away.”

“I know and that’s why I am asking you if you’re sure,” I moved a little closer to him.

He pulled me closer until we were touching each other. He put his arm around my waist. Somewhere, in the background
I thought I heard Mozart’s symphony.  It had to be my imagination. Why else did I see candles when the terrace had been dark when we had come here?

We broke the hug when Robin came and gave us two cups of tea. It didn’t take long before we were kissing each other. The moonlight and the clouds played in heaven as we played on that terrace. One moment it would be dark and suddenly there would be light. It reminded us of our lives, of the moments that we had spent together and the moments that we had been away. The crickets in the wastelands broke the silence of the beautiful night. When the first drizzle started, we were forced to go down. Robin had slept in the study that he used as his bedroom and I made another cup of tea.

Even before we had finished it, he had me in another embrace. We were almost plastered to each other. It wasn’t long before we were kissing. He put his hand on my breast and that’s when I stopped him. It took a lot out of me to stop my lust, to give into the whirlpool and go down with the flow. Yet, I did. It still wasn’t right.

It was raining at dawn when he dropped me and I slipped into the house. I hit the bed and fantasized about him making love to me. What was it about July? Wasn’t it a sodden evening in July that I had given him my all. I slept and dreamt – happy dreams of us together. It had taken such an eternity to come to this place.

Aditya

T
he massage parlour isn’t busy enough today to not let me reminisce about Radhika. I don’t know why my thoughts veer towards her. I have been thinking about her a lot lately. Maybe I crave for her in the company of these women. Yes, there is Shazia, the rich Muslim girl who wants to take me home to her fanatic dad, so that she can marry me. Yes, there is Jaya, the thirty-two-year-old divorcee, who often uses my services and sometimes only pays me to talk to her. Despite them, I am lonely. I long for a partner like the one I had many moons ago; I long for Radhika.

I remember when I had got the e-mail from her I couldn’t help thinking that God was a sadist. God had to be an evil villain who took pleasure in seeing his people
writhe. When I had longed for her she hadn’t been there and when I was hell bent on forgetting her, the e-mail said that she was coming back.

I remembered when I had waited for an eternity at the airport for the update on the
leader board to change from “On Time” to “Landed”. It took another hour or so for her to emerge out of the terminal, dressed in denim dungarees and a red t-shirt. I wondered if it was just an illusion created by the dungaree or if she had really gained more weight. She came closer; she had gained weight. When we neared the exit, she said, “My parents are going to be outside. When can we meet? I am going to Chandigarh directly.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the Sector 16 stadium. 5 p.m.
Get some rest,” I said.

I rushed back home, showered, threw in a couple of clothes into a small duffel bag and rushed out. It was about
1 a.m., not the best time to gallivant on a notorious, unsafe highway in an unsafe car, but it was imperative that I meet her. My curiosity had the better of me. I wanted to understand why she was back and if I had a reason to dream again. I drove at break neck speed, completing the journey in record time. Michael Schumacher would’ve been proud of me that night as I drove on under the night sky, not even stopping to give my burgeoning bladder a breather. I wondered if Maruti would appoint me as a brand ambassador for being able to cover that distance, in that time, in that car.

After my meeting with her, I realized that she needed help. If I had never been romantically involved with her, and if she were just a colleague who had been a great friend, I would’ve helped her. When I saw her that evening, she was a faint shadow of herself. The skin that had once glowed was jaded. The eyes that had once twinkled were almost lifeless. They weren’t smiling even on the few occasions that she managed a smile on her stressed face. I had wanted her back and yes, I still did, but not this shadow. I wanted the Radhika that would come in my dreams, the one that I fell in love with.

On Monday morning, I made my way to the office a little earlier than usual. I waited on the mezzanine floor of DLF Square, a floor that was designated for people who worked in Human Resources. Deepika, after graduating from the training program, chose to take a posting in Human Resources. She felt that it was her kind of work because it didn’t come with insane targets and a mad rush to meet them. She had barely entered the door when I led her to the Nescafe counter in the lobby.

“Remember Radhika?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” she said emptying the contents of the sachet into her cup of coffee.

“She’s back,” I said. My lips curled up in an involuntary smile that had become a part of me ever since that e-mail had arrived.

“What’re you saying?” she said. She was surprised. When she had put forth the idea of the bird returning if you left it free, she had never envisaged it coming true.

“Yes! The marriage didn’t quite work out,” I said careful not to give her any details.

She shrugged her shoulders and for the lack of a better response said, “Shit happens.”

I nodded in response as if I completely understood what
she meant.

“She’s looking for a job. Can you help?” I asked her. Deepika was managing recruitments within Citibank and
although she was relegated to hire staff rather than managers, she was an insider.

“I’ll try,” she said, which meant that she could do it. Deepika was a master at underplaying her abilities.

“I’ll send you her resume,” I said.

We broke up on that note and went about the mundane chores that a Monday morning brings to a bank.
That day, after a two week hiatus, I went back to work with a renewed sense of vigour. There were still a lot of questions that remained unanswered about us, but hope is such a wonderful thing. We work, in the hope that we will get a raise. We love, in the hope that we will find a soul mate. And we earn, in the hope that we will never have to work again.

Talking of earnings, I had lost her because back then, I didn’t earn enough. I lost her because I wasn’t an able suitor and despite my promotion, there was still a lot to be done. If I were to be compared to an NRI who owned an apartment in Manhattan, I still had a long way to go.

I wondered how simple life would be if there was no currency. No notes made of paper or plastic that differentiated between people. Or if there had to be a currency, then why it couldn’t just be love?

I imagined myself walking into a grocery to buy a loaf of bread. The pretty girl at the counter says, “That’ll be two hugs and a kiss on the cheek”. I laughed out aloud which made my colleagues turn around to see me. I must be naïve to imagine that love was the only thing that could run this world. I remembered my vow: I would never let the next person I loved go away. Ironically, Radhika was that next person. A large part of that vow meant that I had to be rich and I delved into the
spread sheet on my desktop that would make my employer rich. Hopefully, some of my employer’s wealth would flow back to me.

Deepika’s magic worked and Radhika was back in Gurgaon. Those days, I think I took my work too seriously. Maybe, the memories of the Performance Improvement Plan were too severely etched in my brain to let me relax. I was almost mechanical, blocking out any emotions of romance or love with Radhika until I was off work. It would be hard to believe how little we saw of each other even though we worked in the same office. Yet, the evenings were ours. I think that was the time when my taste buds possessed me.

We would meet in the street adjacent to DLF Square, away from the prying eyes of our colleagues. I don’t know why we even bothered when the rumour mills were already abuzz with our affair. From there, we would drive to Barista and have a coffee before dinner. At least four times a week, we would go out to eat. The place could be dirty as long as the food tasted good. I think that’s when Culinaire became our favourite. On the other days, I would eat at home, courtesy of the new boy who would cook and clean for me. The incentives that I had been making in selling credit cards afforded him. He was referred to me through a colleague at work and he arrived one day, unannounced, just before I was leaving for work. A Nepali, with a sharp nasal twang, he introduced himself as Govind. Govind sounded like Robin and hence, Govind was rechristened when he got employed.

Robin was such a great cook and it was a pleasure to come back home to homemade food, clean floors and a made-up bed. I wondered if my bachelorhood days were coming to an end. In the six years that I had lived away from home, life had come to a point that sleeping on clean sheets seemed to be a luxury. All in all, life was moving perfectly.

Radhika

T
he cricket stadium had left me weeping. I think Aditya was really my saviour back then. I stay in Chandigarh a few days longer than I should have but except for the children, I have nothing to look forward to back home. I think today is the third day since I have been here. The visit to the cricket stadium has brought back a flood of memories that refuse to leave me. I have never had the urge to go back to YPS. Except for Shipra and Aditya, I have no fond memories of that place.

The only other exception is Ms Kapoor.

I don’t even remember my way back to the school but the boards that the school has put up direct me to the place. The guard at the school gate has changed. The Sikh gentleman at the gates is now replaced by a Hindu. I’ve never been really religious. Maybe, I should have been. Maybe, it would have reduced my suffering.

The guard says that he doesn’t know any Ms Kapoor. I go inside and check at the reception. They tell me that she left the school about ten years ago. I am dejected and unhappy about not meeting her when I bump into Mr Razdan, the mathematics teacher. He tells me that Ms Kapoor retired but still stays in her house in Sector 18.

I walk back to the car and ask Laxman to drive to Sector 18. He thinks that I am crazy. I can see it in the way he looks at me. I remember that this is his first time in Chandigarh and I give him some vague directions. Even before we reach her house, I can feel a wave of nostalgia come over me. I remember how my days were spent at this very house when I transformed from what I was to what I am. My hairs were cut short then. I still sport short hair, but this is ugly, and that was elegant.

I enter her house without ringing the bell. I remember that the bell was only at the front door and not on the gate. She is basking in the sun and recognizes me immediately. She thinks my hair look good. I want to tell her to stop lying, but I don’t. The respect is too deep seated for me to be impolite. I tell her that I try and emulate her and she is proud of what I am doing. In some ways, she is the mother that I have never had. She is everything that I wanted of a mother but it wasn’t my luck. She has aged, must be sixty now. I think she was in her mid-forties when I last saw her. Yet, she’s like that delectable aged cheese which has been in the cellar for long.

It’s difficult to go back but somehow I bid her goodbye. She hugs me and kisses me on the forehead. I ask her to come to Delhi and visit me. I know that she won’t when she says she will. I have nothing else to do in Chandigarh. I check out of the hotel and ask Laxman to drive me back to Delhi.

It’s about nine by the time we reach Delhi and for some strange reason, Laxman takes the BRT. It is jammed as it usually is and so he goes even farther away from home. I know he is insane but he drives well. He takes me through a convoluted route that sees me crossing Greater Kailash. It’s already nine- thirty and the traffic
is dying down. I see the board of the Saloon but I don’t hate the hair dresser anymore. Ms Kapoor has given me some positivity about my hair. I am just about to take my eyes off the board when I see a bright neon board.

It
wasn’t here the last time I crossed. In a cursive hand, it says “HappyEndingz Massage Parlour”. It leaves nothing to imagination and I can’t help wonder what the world is coming to. I reach home and sleep.

The next morning, Shipra having learnt that I have lost my father, has come over to offer her condolences.

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” she says.

I don’t know why I tell her everything about my childhood. Everything, that begins from being offered up for adoption to being returned. I have never shared this with anyone, except Aditya and yet, I tell her. It is as if my telling her will in some way undo my parent’s follies. Often, I think that if they hadn’t done what they had, I might have been a different personality. I wouldn’t be this shy. I wouldn’t be this person who struggles to make relationships work.

She listens patiently. I mean, that is the best that she can do. If I don’t have a solution to my problems, she definitely doesn’t have any. Just before she leaves, she says, “It’s my anniversary next week. I’ll need your help.”

I can’t be more elated in someone asking me for help. I wonder if I should start hiring out myself for odd chores that can help people.

“Name it,” I say.

“Come over tomorrow and we’ll figure it out,” she says. Shipra leaves and the children from the neighbourhood
come. My dhobi wants to give me a discount on the ironing bill for helping his child. I politely refuse because it takes away the premise on which I am running this cause. It is a means to make myself useful. It is a means of giving back to society.

In some countries, civil punishments require a certain number of hours to be volunteered for community service. I sometimes see this activity as a penance for having jilted
Aditya. I had been coerced but it was really my weakness that I hadn’t been able to stand up to my parents.

The next day, I go to Shipra’s. It is her tenth anniversary and she wants to make quite an extravagant affair out of it.

“So, what do you want me to do?” I say.

“Why don’t you just take over food completely?” she asks
me.

“I’ll do that. Are you fine with a non-Vegetarian menu?” I
ask her.

“Yes! I am no longer the Tamil Brahmin,” she says.

It is funny how much Shipra has changed. I remember her not eating out of my tiffin box once she learnt that I was a non- vegetarian.

It is seldom that I get an opportunity to be useful and I get working in earnest. By that evening, I have a list of five caterers that we can use. I have the menu worked out; I go back to being a seven year old child at the
farmer’s market who loves to haggle with people for money.

I beat them down on price until they are a fraction of their initial quote. The party is to be at DSOI and I am there in the morning of that March day that is their anniversary. It is only after I think that the cooks are on schedule that I go to Shipra’s home in the cantonment to change. It is warm already, so I avoid wearing silk, instead choosing chiffon. It is an elegant turquoise sari that I had once bought on a trip to Bangalore with Vimal. It has just stayed locked up in the closet until today.

When I reach the venue, the guests are already there. Shipra and the Colonel are busy entertaining their guests and I feel a little out of place. After all, they are the only people that I know there.