Episode 33

‘So, aren’t you going back?’, I ask him.

‘You want me to leave?’, he asks.

‘Umm.. you told your parents you would be back.’

‘Pri.. Don’t worry..’

‘They will know you are here and would probably guess…’, I say, bite my tongue, bury my face into his chest because really, they would guess and assume a lot. We were both lying on my bed, I was in my night shirt and Karthik was shirtless. There wasn’t much space so we had to make do and it was perfect.

I hear Karthik chuckling through his chest’s rumble. It then changes to a laugh.

‘I am being serious’, I raise my head to look at him.

He does some complicated raising and bending move and plants his lips on the middle of my head, kissing my hair.

‘I know. And you are right, I have to leave. I just don’t want to.’

Well, it is close to midnight. If whatever happened today didn’t cause a scandal, if he didn’t leave now, I would never be able to face his parents. They declared I am uncultured already.

I get up and move away, swiftly walking out of the room. Karthik follows me out of the bed but while I continue on to the living room, he remains. When he enters the living room while I rummage through the fridge, he is dressed, but his slick hair is all messed up. What can I say, I like this look as well.

‘Milk?’, I ask him, the only thing in the fridge to fill my stomach.

He shakes his head. I head to the kitchen to warm the milk up. Karthik follows me there.

‘Priya, it will be fine.’

I look up at him, he indeed looks fine and calm and at peace. I on the other hand am running the risk of being branded a slut, by his parents.

‘You don’t get it’, I state the truth.

The milk having warmed to a comfortable temperature I transfer it to a mug and add a spoon of honey. I start sipping it.

‘I promise, it will be fine’, he assures me. His arms around me while I continue to religiously sip more of the milk.

Well, it is spoilt milk, nothing to be done. Okay, not spoilt milk, I don’t want to call this spoilt. Spilled milk then. What’s with all the milk analogies?

I shrug.

‘I really have to go though’, he says unnecessarily, don’t I know that?

I nod. I take a sip again while I hear him chuckle, yet again. Exactly what is funny now?

‘Pri come on. This is like…’, he says sounding all upbeat.

‘Like?’

‘Nothing, forget it’, he says, but he smiles.

I smile. I mean, I smile brilliantly. He is totally right.

Karthik looks at my smile and his eyes turn intense-gleamy-possessive-sexy and a million other things. He drops his head, pulls my life giving cup of milk out of my hand, places it god-knows-where and kisses me in a way which could be called meditation.

‘I have to leave’, he says looking down at me.

I nod. He sighs.

‘This is going to get difficult.’, he says and moves away. I move back to lean against the counter as I am not entirely sure my legs can support me.

‘Lock the door Pri’, he informs. I follow him, lock the door behind him, fetch my cup of milk and go to my room.

I fold the saree to put it away and go to sleep.

******************************************************************************* 

‘Hi Priya’, I hear Shan’s voice and I look up from my laptop to find Shan’s face smirking down at me.

‘Hello Shan’

‘Got five minutes?’, he asks and points to a meeting room about ten feet away from my cubicle.

I quickly save the files I have been working on and get up and follow him. What now?

‘Yes Shan’, I say, once we go into a room.

‘Okay, so we are going to work on another business proposal, we need you on the team, Sukanya is putting together the same team again’

That’s yayyyy. Work might just get interesting after a long time.

‘That’s nice. I would like that.’

‘Also, we have identified you for a training, if you are interested there is one slot in the next week, the next one would be in the next quarter. I know it is a bit late notice, if you are interested though, you can attend the training.’

‘What is it about?’

‘Sukanya recommended it for you. I will send you all the details.’

‘Sure’

‘It is an expensive training and there is an assignment at the end which you have to complete…’

Assignment? Really? I haven’t really heard that word since college. I try to control my impulse to hang my head. I just nod.

‘Okay, Priya. That was it.’

Really? He asked me into a meeting room for this?

The question must have shown on my face. Shan’s smirk transforms and a smirk-smile takes its place. Let me tell you, the transformation is only a slight improvement.

‘Priya, if you don’t mind, can I ask you something?’

‘Ummm..’, I hesitate. Tread carefully Pri. ‘Ya, okay’.

For a brief fraction of a second, the smile component in his smirk-smile beats the smirk component.

‘I just want to ask if you are alright?’

‘Sure, I am alright!’, huh?

‘Priya… I heard about what happened in Ri.. Karthik’s award dinner…’

Ohhhh… That was two days ago and I have been having nightmares about it. To top that, Karthik has been really busy and I have only been speaking to him over phone and I have to tell you, although I know he is very busy and all that, I still feel a slight panic like I am vulnerable for whatever idiotic reason. Man, no wonder people made a big deal about losing one’s virginity. I needed some form of reassurance from Karthik for whatever unknown reason that had its roots in anthropology. And, to top all that, I have been talking to my mother for not more than two minutes everytime she calls and I have successfully avoided talking to my dad at all. Seriously, the conditioning these people have subjected me to, Tamil culture and all that.

‘Priya?’, Shan breaks through my not-so-great thoughts.

I take a deep breath to calm myself.

‘Yeah, I am alright. Did Karthik tell you?’

Shan chuckles. I see it real-live, so I have to believe he can chuckle.

‘As if, Karthik is someone who is very very adept in keeping every part of his life completely separate. He doesn’t mix up home, relationships, work, friends, parents etc, he keeps everything separate’

Hmmm. I did not know this about him. But I… Damn, I have to get rid of this feeling of something missing and wrong I have been feeling since the day I woke up after the award show and haven’t been able to meet Karthik in two days since.

‘Then?’

‘His parents told me. Rather, they wanted to ask me how I could let this happen and also not so subtly asked me about you. They seem to be thinking you have some ulterior motive’

I sigh.

‘Don’t worry, I put in a good word for you. Also Karthik hasn’t been home much, he is busy with work, but his parents think he is wantedly avoiding them so wanted me to talk to him’

I ponder on sharing my real thoughts on this, something along the lines of not caring what his parents thought or did. I know though that I am just feeling it now because the other day still stings.

So I keep quiet.

‘That bad huh?’, Shan asks.

‘Not really’,  I say.

‘I know uncle and aunty. Both are very straight forward’.

That is one way to put it.

‘Yep. They are’

‘Priya, I want you to know, I support you. They asked me and I told them I support you’

Wow. Where did this come from? Wait, it is good he supports me. But really, why does it matter? Or should I take it as a good sign that Karthik’s parents reached out to Shan? Ugh. Everything is complicated. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Shan smiles for the first time ever at me.

‘We have all been observing Karthik, he had become a workaholic. We would have to do a lot of finagling to get him to meet us. That is changing. I used to wish it were because of someone else, but it is you. He isn’t obsessed like the last time.. This is good for him.’

I heard only one sentence from that mini-speech. Karthik was obsessed the last time? As in Deepika last time? I probably shouldn’t care but where is said obsession now? There were definitely some good points about me there. Who cares? He was obsessed?

‘Ohhhh’, I say lamely.

‘Anyways, I will send you details on the training and the new project as well. Okay?’

‘Yup, sure.’

I have been stuck with an issue for a day now and all the googling in the world hasn’t helped. I spoke to people and they don’t have a clue too. I even resorted to raising a bug against the software we are using in the hopes they would give a way how to do it to not fix the bug and to hasten the process I posted in their public forum. That hasn’t helped, yet. So I am looking forward to anything at all, work wise or any-wise.

So, I do the most sensible thing and begin obsessing about Karthik. I call him, he doesn’t answer. I text him, no response.  

I look at the new project, it is some company trying to sell ebooks and audio books. Really? This late in the game? Just because I helped with the library product, did they think I became a book expert of any sort? The last book I read was in my teens and it was the Chicken soup for teenage soul.

Now I go back to checking the issue, but the only issue is I cannot concentrate. After several minutes of pretending to try to concentrate, I give up. Fuck it. I am done for the day. It is not like I am going to get any award in this year. Karthik is the award-winning type. Shit.

I just leave and as an afterthought, drop a mail to Shan saying I am not feeling well and leaving for the day, which he would definitely know is a lie and probably would end up reconsidering his not-important-support. Life is a vicious circle, believe you me.

I reach home and call Anitha. She says she will try to come home early. I switch off my phone and decide to sleep. So that is what I do.

When I wake up it is because the air conditioner in my room has long gone off, as evidenced by the not so light perspiration I am covered in and I realize there has been a power cut. The bower back up should have kicked in, but the air conditioner probably wouldn’t be linked to that source. So I get up and switch on the fan and open some windows. I test the water in the bathroom pipe, it is scorching hot. Okay, no point showering now. I go in search of something cool to drink and luckily find some smoothie type of thing in a jug. Lucky because I invited Anitha to be my roommate, Anitha being the type of girl who made juices and smoothies and lived by some code of standards she set for herself. She is almost obsessive about these things, wait, she is obsessive about everything.

After I finish with half a jug of the smoothie which had banana in it so really couldn’t taste anything else, I go into the kitchen and find the tender coconut we had gotten the day before. It is the fresh one sliced off at the top and with a bit more slicing and picking at it, I should be able to get to the coconut water. Unfortunately we do not have any sharp and big knifes or the small sickle type things that the tender coconut vendor people use. I take my not so sharp but sturdy kitchen knife and hack at the top.

After spilling a little bit of blood and screaming bloody murder during the process, I succeed in extracting the cool water from the tender coconut. I prioritize, drink it while washing off the blood on my left index finger under the hot water from the sink. We do not have a central water heating boiler or heater. It is just the result of midday sun’s happy activity. I find some band-aid to cover the cut, but realize that the cut is bigger for one band-aid and from the looks of it, I need at least three of them. I douse a lot of anti-septic liquid on it while crying at the sting and wrap a white bandage around it after placing a cotton swab. The bleeding hasn’t entirely stopped but looks like I am good at this bandage wrapping thing. Good to know. Also, there went half our supply of first-aid (which my mother bought and forcibly packed and ensured I kept it in an easily reachable spot). I need to top up on that now.

I know I should have eaten lunch but I wasn’t hungry and besides, in this heat, lunch is overrated, I mean, digestion process generated more heat in the body, who would want that when the temperature is nearing a forty degrees?

The wi-fi isn’t connected to the back-up power source and the cable was situated in a corner where there can never be air of any sort at any time. So I go browse Anitha’s book collection. I expected her to have romances and suspenses.

What I found were lot of self-help books, books on focusing the mind, on healthy mind, meditation and stuff, self-control, there were some philosophical books etc. There should be some story there, if she read all these books all the time and they were not those books advising on how to be successful. I would like to know but I am not the type that pries until really needed. I pick a book on focus, I mean, really I needed to do that.

I read about the author, the brief introduction in the back, the author’s note, some reviews on the book and the author and the list of famous people who have found the book to be useful. I read the acknowledgements. I mean, books? Not my type. Self-help books? I mentally scoff at myself for attempting. So that is how Anitha finds me, dozing on the couch, my tank top ridden up to expose my not-so-flat tummy, the book on my chest open and face-down, my wounded arm carefully lifted up and away resting above my head on the armrest and god knows where my other arm is.

‘Oh my god. Are you alright? That is a huge bandage.’, is her first reaction when I open one eye and try to focus it on her.

Ohh.. Is it? Maybe I overdid it? I bring my hand to inspect and it looked proportional to the size of the cut and there was now dried blood on it. Okay, looks like it wasn’t really a minor cut. On hindsight, the knife wasn’t very sharp, so for my finger to bleed so much it must have been a deep cut and I must have put a lot of force into the whole cutting process, that does not result in small cuts. Great looking bandage though, with the dried blood and all that. I can milk this.

‘Well, I was trying to cut open the tender coconut.’

‘You used the knife?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was going to borrow the sickle from our neighbour’

‘You know to use it?’

‘I was going to ask Naren or someone else to do it.’

Ohh. Well. I shrug.

‘Are you alright?’

‘I think so’

Anitha shakes her head.

‘You really need someone to take care of you, don’t you?’

Huh? Not really. I just glare at her. Okay, so I cut myself, I took care of it. I didn’t bleed all over the place and call her for help or an ambulance. I didn’t need someone to take care of me.

‘Did it help?’, she asks next pointing at the book.

‘I read that lot of famous people found it useful.’

Anitha smiles and sits down on the chair next to the couch. I get up and adjust my attire.

I pick up the bottle of water wedged between me and the couch and hand it to her.

‘Are you alright?’, she asks me.

‘Yup. Just no mood to work’

She looks at me for a beat and nods.

‘You want to go to Ishitha’s place?’

‘I was thinking of checking up on Bala’

‘We could do both. It is not even five’

So I shower, get ready, put on an oversized tee shirt belted around waist and a pair of palazzos that went together only if you really wanted them to. I put on Ishitha’s bracelet. I leave my phone behind, after switching it on and finding no messages or calls. I needed a break from it.

We reach Ishitha’s place. We tell her we intend to visit Bala. She seems to have been working on something for her advertising agency and was stuck and wanted to get away. She worked from home most of the days and went into the office only for meetings or if she isn’t able to do things from home or if she was bored and needed a change of scene.

Since Ishitha needed a break from her place, we all head to Bala’s place.

Bala isn’t doing any rehearsing of any sort, even though I was supposed to see him rehearse, he had been to a party the previous day and had gotten piss-drunk and had been nursing a hangover the whole day and wanted to get some air.

So we decided to go to the beach even though the beach was quite far from Bala’s place. Anitha gets a call and we hear her inviting someone over to join the beach. I look at her in question.

‘It is Ishwarya, from the New Year’s party? She wanted to hang out.’

‘Oh cool.’

Around that time Bala gets a call and he invites someone over too.

‘That was?’, Anitha asks.

‘Aravind. He wanted to hang out.’

‘Okay cool’.

Ishitha looks at us with a question.

‘The writer guy’, I explain.

‘Ahhh, the show-off’

Yup.

Everyone nods agreeably.

We reach the beach and Ishwarya is already there. Bala buys and eats everything that is there on the beach while we look at him questioning our decision to bring him along.

Anitha and I introduce Ishitha and Ishwarya and just point Bala out to her. WE decided to wait for him to get over his eating disorder probably caused by the excessive alcohol from the previous day.

Aravind arrives in some time and introduces himself to everyone and seems to look very impressed with Ishwarya. He already offered to buy her some ice-cream.

Once Bala is back, we all head to the actual shore line and stand in knee deep water and effectively get wet much higher with the waves. Come on, you don’t swim in Chennai’s public beaches. Besides, I don’t know swimming.

The evening feels cool probably because we are at the shore but also there is a breeze which has begun to get cooler. I forget about everything and just enjoy chasing the waves. The breeze kind of gains strength and the winds pick up.

I look at my now wet bandage and realize the fresh sting is from all the salt water and the sand. Shit. That is stupid.

‘I think I need to wash this.’, I tell Anitha. She looks at my bandage and freaks out.

‘Priyaaaa. I forgot too. I am so sorry, you need to wash it immediately. Let me come with you’

‘That’s okay. I will just get a bottle of mineral water and do it.’

She nods. I start walking away.

After few steps I hear someone calling out my name. I turn back to see Bala following me.

He jogs the last few feet when I stop and joins me.

‘Phew. Are you alright?’

I show him my hand.

He chuckles. ‘You are a bit of an idiot’, he gives his opinion unasked.

Since I don’t have a comeback, I smile.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeah, why do you ask?’

‘You have been very silent’

‘Have I? Really?’

‘Yep’, he smiles. Belatedly, I realize he has a dimple on his left cheek alone.

‘I never noticed that one sided dimple before’

‘Really? It has been there forever. Part of my charm.’

I laugh. ‘What charm? The charm of you eating three plates of bhajjis?’

‘Okay, we won’t talk about charm today.’

We walk in silence.

We soon see a shop which had mineral water. I ask for a bottle and Bala insists on buying. I don’t get it. I couldn’t win the argument so I let him buy.

I open the bandage and find some sand inside it.

‘Wow. How did you get that?’

‘Self-inflicted’, I say and his eyes widen.

‘Here, let me pour the water, you clean it. Also, you need another bandage and you need to leave.’

‘Yup.’

With his help, I get the wound cleaned. I borrow his phone to call Anitha. I ask her to remain and inform her that I will go back home. Even though I ask Bala to get back to the group he doesn’t. He insists on accompanying me back home.

I feel slightly awkward at his announcement. He calls for a cab and we leave.

After debating internally on how to tell him am not available, given the fact that diplomacy is not my strong suite. I go at it directly.

‘So Bala, do you have a girlfriend?’

Bala looks mildly shocked and I realize how I must have sounded.

‘Nope. I don’t’, he says.

‘Ohhh… You know I have a boyfriend right?’, yup, I am very adept at these things.

Bala looks mildly shocked again, but doesn’t say anything.

‘Ummm…. I…’, how do I explain further?

‘You think I am trying something here?’, he asks, amused.

I nod. He chuckles self-consciously.

‘I know you have a boyfriend, I saw him. I just… Well, I..’, he pauses. ‘I just think you are great and I like hanging out with you and I find you very easy to be with. I am sure everyone feels it.’

Huh? I don’t think so. I had very few friends growing up. After my friend Swathi moved from India, I didn’t even attempt to mingle with others, I didn’t believe I could make good friends, until I moved out of my parents’ place.

‘Forget I said anything.. Just I…’

‘I get it. You must be used to guys hitting on you all the time’

I laugh.

‘Guys don’t hit on me. At all.’

‘Probably because they get confused’

‘Confused?’

‘Yeah, you are very unreadable. I mean, you are open and all that, but it is extremely unclear whether you are interested or not.’

Huh? Wasn’t Karthik telling me all the time that he can see most of what I am thinking?

‘I am sure Karthik would disagree’

‘Yep, that is why he is your boyfriend’, Bala says, giving me free relationship insight.

I smile.

We reach my place. He leaves because let’s face it, we were dragging beach sand everywhere and I wanted to get rid of my clothes, soak in clean water and change, he must be feeling it too.

I go up to my apartment. I shower for the third time and use my first aid kit for the second time. I change into a comfortable white tank top and uber-big and comfortable yellow pyjama bottoms. Anitha had promised to get me dinner so all I need is to relax.

I feel something is off and realize my phone is still off and I don’t have it in my hand. No sooner I switch it on I get texts on all the calls I missed and an actual text message from Karthik that he will be in ten minutes which was sent about ten minutes ago, so he should be here anytime. I see my mom has called and so has Karthik, several times. I hear my doorbell in few minutes.

I go to open it and Karthik enters, wearing a white tee shirt and dark blue jeans. He looks tired.

‘Hi’, I smile at him.

‘I am sorry’, he says entering.

‘For?’

‘I was so damn busy, there was an issue we didn’t know how to fix’

‘Tell me about it’, I didn’t know how to fix the issue at my work too. Although I am sure mine wasn’t a pressing issue.

‘Fix it?’

‘Nope. But found a solution’

‘Cool’

‘You okay? Anitha told me you took the day off’

‘Nope. I didn’t. I just took the second half off’

Karthik chuckles.

‘I don’t think I am a fan of you and Anitha being such good friends that you call her and all that’

‘I wouldn’t have to call her if your phone was on’

‘Well.. Yeah, some problem with the battery’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.. of course’

Karthik and I had settled on the couch. He pulls me towards him.

‘Anitha spoke a lot. She had a few things to say to me.’

‘Ohhh’

He picks up my wounded hand. ‘You should be careful’, he says softly pressing around the bandage.

I nod. He picks up my hand and kisses it.

‘I am sorry, it wasn’t intentional, and I really got busy’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Apparently, it wasn’t okay’

I sigh.

‘It is okay now’, Bala set me right.

‘You don’t want to talk about it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Okay. I don’t know what to do with you then’

I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘I came prepared to beg, mope and cry for forgiveness’.

‘Why?’

‘I know how your brain works’, he doesn’t, I hope not. ‘Okay, I don’t, but I have experience in dealing with women, and given the fact that you were calling me and I wasn’t really talking well and with Anitha filling in the gaps…..’

Ugh. Not a good thing to bring that up though.

Karthik chuckles. He of course knew I am feeling a tiny bit jealous.

‘So Anitha is bringing dinner?’, he asks.

‘Yeah. We should tell her to get some for you as well.’

‘Texting…’, he says and texts her.

‘What do you want to do now?’

‘You want to watch some movie?’, I ask him.

‘Sure, why not?’, he says, combing through my wet hair with his fingers.

So we do just that and this is an entirely new experience because I never sat that close to anyone and he didn’t seem to mind that a little more and I would be on him, not next to him.

Later, much later, after Anitha has come in with burgers for us and after she showers and joins us and we all eat together and Anitha goes into the room with a book in hand, Karthik hugs me, kisses me and as is his habit, drops a bomb at the most unsuspecting of moments.

‘My parents want to meet yours.’