Arranged Love (19 page)

Sitting in his car, I saw a rose lying on his dashboard, waiting to be caressed by a loving hand and kissed by soft lips. I expected him to stop the car any time on the roadside, offer me the red rose, pledge his love for me and ask me to become his for a lifetime. I know I had only rejected him some time back but girls can be really weird at times. A while later, he stopped the car, and I waited for him to make a move, but nothing happened.

‘Your home has come,’ he reminded me gently.

I cast one final longing look at the flower, reluctantly opened the car door and got out. He drove away without so much as a
backward glance. Maybe the rose was for someone else? Maybe he was off to meet his school-time love Meeta?

Some days you just feel so sad and worthless, like your life has no meaning. Like you can do nothing, and you want to cry, but the tears don’t come. Partly because you have already spent your month’s supply of tears crying in the bathroom. Your heart is full of emotions and pain and you don’t know why. You just wish you could go back to being a child and someone would tell you what to do next, and you cry some more. You hate your laziness for doing nothing but sitting idle, and you wish … but you don’t even know what to wish for. Finally, sleep takes over and you can dream what you want because dreams follow no logic.

My FB status read, ‘The best way to deal with a break-up is a good night’s sleep.’

I peeped out from behind the curtain and saw scores of people sitting in the auditorium, chatting, and eagerly waiting for the performance to begin. The front row, reserved for the founders and the various COs, was nearly full. The initial speeches were over. The overall mood of the crowd was jubiliant. iTrot had gained a significant market share in the online travel industry in the last one year and drinks were on the house. I spotted Rohan sir lounging on the front row corner seat. Dressed in a casual half-sleeved red shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned and dark blue jeans, he looked unexpectedly handsome and young. I eagerly scanned the audience looking for my parents and found them smugly seated at the centre of the hall. While Dad was adjusting his SLR hoping to catch a perfectly timed shot, Mom, armed with her latest Nokia N95, was feverishly looking forward to upload my dance on FB. Under immense pressure from her elder sisters in Pune and Ambala to find a suitable boy for me, I think she wanted to show off Deep to them. I noticed that Dad had kept the programme card to reserve a seat for Tanu di next to him. She had promised to reach by 7 p.m., in time to see my dance. I unlocked my mobile and checked the time. She was expected to come any minute.

I glanced at the slide projected on the screen. Kavita was on her last slide, talking about the aggressive hiring plans and about
making iTrot a women-friendly company. Our ballroom dance was the next item on the agenda. I knew Deep would be standing across the stage, behind the curtain on the other side, as we were the lead pair. A tiny shiver of excitement trailed down my spine at the thought of him holding me in public. I had thoroughly enjoyed every moment of our practice sessions, enjoying the touch of his strong hands and savouring the spicy scent of his aftershave. My favourite part in the sequence was when he swung me around and let me loose so I swayed away from him, and then he grabbed my arm the next instant, pulling me close in a tight embrace. It made me feel wanted and desired. However, off the dance floor, Deep had been behaving very strangely, very official—boss-like. No morning round of coffee, no KS talk, and no casual flirting. Sometimes, a whole day would go by and he wouldn’t even say my name. I was beginning to wonder if the mischievous smile in his eyes, his husky laugh and our repartee sessions had all been a fabrication of my back office.

Kavita finished her speech, left the stage and went back to her seat next to Rohan sir. The MC announced our programme and the stage lights went dim. We all quickly moved in and took our positions. I was glad when I saw Tanu di walk in from the rear entrance. It was too late for her to wend her way through the audience and take the seat next to Pa. She walked straight down the aisle and sat down below on the carpeted step, right next to Rohan sir. She waved wildly at me and I gave her a childish grin in return. Seconds later, I saw Vikram walk down and join her on the step. He was still pursuing her.

Before I could feel the butterflies in my stomach, Deep grabbed my right hand with his left hand and held my waist with his right. I gently placed my left hand on his shoulder and the show began. While Deep effortlessly twirled me around the floor, another drama was unfolding in the front row corner.

‘Nice presentation!’ complimented Rohan as Kavita came down
from the dais. ‘I agree with your views on increasing the company oestrogen levels.’

‘Thanks,’ Kavita smiled. ‘I hope your airport pick-up and hotel arrangements were in order.’

‘Yes, they were perfect,’ he thanked and added, ‘I am sorry to hear about you and Vikas. Is he going to continue working at iTrot?’

‘I don’t think so. He was never very comfortable with me earning more than him,’ she said, disparagingly.

I was not the only one going through ‘love is for losers’ phase. Along with mine, another love story had ended. Vikas and Kavita’s divorce decision had rocked the small world that iTrot was and everyone was speculating who would leave the company.

‘I personally feel that women are far more superior to men,’ whispered Rohan secretively.

Flattered, Kavita asked in a soft, teasing voice, ‘Is that why you never married?’

He gave her a wide, friendly smile and quickly changed the topic. ‘That’s a very intricate lace on your dress,’ he said.

(This was the instant when Tanu di came and sat down on the step next to Rohan sir.)

Startled by Rohan’s observation and interest in lace, Kavita raised an eyebrow at him.

‘I can’t make something half as beautiful,’ he admitted humbly.

(Tanu di turned abruptly at hearing the familiar voice and intently listened in on the conversation, her heart beating as loud as thunder when she finally realized who she was sitting next to.)

This time Kavita shook her head in total incredulity, like he had revealed he was homosexual. ‘You can crochet?’ she asked, fascinated.

‘Now that women are running companies, men better learn to …’

‘… bake and embroider,’ said Tanu di, completing Rohan’s line. It had been over fifteen years when he had said those very same
words to her, while sipping coconut water on a beach. She hadn’t forgotten a single minute of her time spent with him.

Recognizing the voice, he turned around to face her. He still remembered the first time he had seen her during a ragging session. She had been so beautiful, so naive, and yet so confident that he had immediately fallen in love with her. But then he had lost her somewhere in the battle of heart and mind. How he had pined for her and waited for her to come back to him, all in vain. And now, when he had least expected it, she had appeared from nowhere.

His eyes were beaming with the happiness of a child who had finally found his rainbow, after years of standing and waiting in the rain.

‘You still remember what I said?’ he asked, rather surprised.

‘You are still using the same old pick-up lines?’ Tanu di countered half-teasingly, her face shining with the radiance of love that had only strengthened by their time apart.

‘Actually, I have ten more lines stored in my BlackBerry for easy reference. I just use the one that best suits the situation,’ he wisecracked.

‘You haven’t changed at all. Ready to flirt with anyone, as long as it is a girl,’ she said lightly.

‘Not all girls. Only the ones with long, lustrous hair,’ he quipped, his endearing smile making her stomach flip and giving her the goosebumps.

‘Still wearing a red t-shirt?’ she teased further, knowing well that he believed that the red colour enhanced sexual desire in the opposite sex.

‘It’s not the same one that I wore to the 1994 Rendezvous, I promise,’ he joked.

‘Gosh! You are already on the wrong side of thirty-five. You must feel old,’ she pulled his leg, like she was still nineteen.

‘But you are a very young-looking thirty-four,’ he said charmingly.

She had done some research on men and she knew that if there was something that became three times its size when a man was excited, it was his pupils. She gazed deeply into his eyes and she knew that he was as thrilled to meet her as she was to meet him. They both floated back in time to the evenings they had spent together, sitting on a broken rickshaw outside the IIT girls’ hostel, sharing jokes, discussing their present and planning their future. The moonlit Rajpath where he had confessed his love and the low, brick wall, in the baski courts, behind which they had first kissed.

‘I missed you, Champ,’ she muttered, having momentarily forgotten that he was a dad to a ten-year-old boy and that VC was sitting beside her, watching her make romantic overtures towards a stranger.

‘I missed you too, Tanu,’ he said in a soft, intimate voice.

‘So, how have you been?’ he asked tenderly.

‘Just like you left me,’ she replied, her voice cracking with emotions.

‘Oh! But I never left you,’ he said, suddenly getting all defensive. ‘It was you who didn’t think the time was right, remember?’

‘Well, you could have waited for the right time,’ she said accusingly, her eyes searching his for the spark she thought she had seen moments ago. ‘You never came back.’

‘You were busy chasing your dreams. There was no one to come back to,’ he argued.

What did he mean there was no one to come back to? What had she been doing if not waiting for him for the last 5000 days of her life? Besides, he had not even waited for her to finish her engineering. He had gotten engaged to Piya at the drop of a hat.

Perhaps she never really understood that he was looking
for an unambitious, educated girl with beautiful, long hair to carry his progeny. Long hair so he would be enticed to make love and have kids with her, educated so she could manage the kids’ homework and unambitious so she wouldn’t leave the kids at home and go career trotting. She, the women entrepreneur of India, could never really be the girl of his dreams.

Now she knew why they never met for all these years. It was because they were not meant to be together. They were not the pieces of the same puzzle. They were randomly juxtaposed, seemingly befitting pieces of two different puzzles.

‘You were right. There was no one waiting for you,’ concluded Tanu di with steely resolve. ‘Meet Vikram,’ she said, holding VC’s hand like a prized trophy. ‘He is my husband,’ she lied and snogged a most astonished Vikram passionately. Then she turned to VC and said, ‘Meet Rohan. He is the asshole whom I loved and wanted to marry when I was twenty-one. Back then, I thought it was the wrong time, but today I realized it was the wrong guy.’ With that, she punched Rohan hard and square on the face, got up in a huff and stomped away, with VC eagerly following, wagging his tail.

The music finally stopped and we all stood still like statues striking a pose. I was positioned with my upper body arched backwards, my weight resting on Deep’s arms and my hands outstretched horizontally. With my head upside down, I saw Tanu di stomp away hastily and Rohan sir sitting, mouth agape and holding a bleeding nose. Kavita, who had stepped out to talk to her daughter on the phone, didn’t notice anything. The auditorium was filled with thunderous applause. Everyone loved the foot-tapping music, the synchronization and the youthful energy on the floor.

I changed out of the jazzy dance costume, took the car keys from Dad, told him I was going out to get some flowers for a play
and zoomed away. Twenty minutes later, I was parked outside Tanu di’s apartment in someone else’s reserved parking.

‘What the fuck do you think you are doing?’ I shouted, as I barged through her living room into her bedroom. I bet you all must have figured out by now that the mysterious, single and handsome Rohan sir was none other than Tanu di’s Champ.

‘Something I should have done ages ago,’ Di replied.

I could tell from her red nose and matching blotchy red eyes that she had been crying.
I surveyed the apartment, but VC was nowhere to be seen.

‘Crying a river and burning a bridge to get over Champ,’ Di added.

‘Don’t burn the bridge. You may want to go back,’ I teased. I knew something about Champ that she didn’t.

‘It’s over. I am done masturbating with his picture,’ Di declared.

‘Cool! It’s time you experienced the real thing,’ I encouraged, with an amused expression in my eyes.

‘Yes. I am getting married to VC,’ Di informed. ‘I even smooched him in front of Champ.’

‘OMG! You didn’t.’ I stared at her in shock. Saliva exchanging, a tongue kiss, unless done in dreams, was akin to exchanging garlands for Tanu di.

‘What? You look like I told you that Hermione is marrying Harry rather than Ron? Don’t you think Vikram is nice? Oh God! Don’t tell me you met his ex-wife and she told you he is gay, because he didn’t really respond to my kiss?’

‘Hey, Di, what happened to the good old
‘you ask a question and wait for the reply’
communication?’ I mocked lightly.

Tanu di folded her arms and pouted like a child. Then, she sat down with her back to me and sulked.

She looked so cute that I couldn’t stop myself from breaking into
a guffaw. I knew it was sort of mean, but I found the whole situation very funny. Besides, I was just going to tell her something that would make her happy beyond words. I wrapped my arms around her and whispered softly in her ears, ‘Rohan sir is not married.’

She immediately spun around and gazed at me wide-eyed. Then she zapped open her laptop, logged on to Facebook and opened Piya’s profile picture.

Fuck! The boy did look exactly like Rohan sir. ‘Maybe they got engaged, made love, she got pregnant and then later decided not to marry?’ I hypothesized, in response to Di’s questioning stare. What the heck! I didn’t have an account of the girls Rohan sir had slept with. I just knew that he was at the beck and call of his BlackBerry whom he openly referred to as his sole mistress. Feeling a bit stupid, I watched Di’s face for a reaction. There was a wild and vengeful look in her eyes. The encounter with Champ had lifted the veil of false hope she was hiding behind—it unleashed the fighter within. Warily, I waited for the anticipated outburst. To my utter surprise, Di clicked ‘Add Friend’ on Piya’s FB page and as luck would have it, Piya instantly accepted her request with a message saying, ‘I didn’t steal your red. I only borrowed it for a while. Gotta go. Let’s talk later at length.’