Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas (2 page)

But today I felt it was Time. The time had come to change. I could feel a wave of a revolution coming over me. Sex and relationships could be two different things. I should forget about understanding men and just have sex with them. That’s what my head was saying. Who said age doesn’t play with one’s hormones? Today, mine were raging like the blazing dry lands in Wisconsin.

The phone rang. It was my best friend Aditi.

‘Happy April Fool’s Day, babe. What you doing?’

Aditi had been my friend for the last eight years. She was the first friend I had in Mumbai. And it was the most awesome meeting ever. I had taken the First Lady of France to see a film shoot and help her interpret Hindi and Bollywood better. Aditi was the assistant director running around trying to get a particular hat for the lead actress. While the director was screaming his head off, she noticed the First Lady’s hat and quickly came over and asked her to take it off and hand it to her. I was appalled and didn’t know how to translate this galling request.

But Aditi said very firmly, ‘I don’t care who you are, but I’m part of a mega-crore industry and will lose my job if I don’t get that hat now!’

So the First Lady took it off (after I translated what Aditi had said, a toned down version, of course) and gave it to her. We got an umbrella to shield us from the sun, and Aditi returned the hat after the shot. Later, Aditi took us around the set and introduced us to the Superstar of Bollywood. The First Lady said she had never had so much fun and Aditi and I exchanged numbers and have been friends ever since.

‘Having coffee,’ I replied to her blandly.

‘Intravenously?’

‘No, re! At CD’s. Sipping the usual strong cappuccino,’ I said.

‘What plans for today? Anyone plan a surprise thirtieth birthday party for you?’ she mocked knowing that I had very few friends.

‘Nothing much. No delegates in April. So I’m broke.’

‘You poor thing. That is a terrible April Fool’s joke that God is playing on you! So let me treat you tonight. What say?’ Aditi asked.

‘Okay.’ I replied, and then as an afterthought, ‘I also have some news!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I have finally made up my mind about the “problem” I have had.’

‘What problem?’ Aditi asked.

‘My virginity,’ I whispered, cupping the mobile phone so no one would hear me.

‘Ah, that problem! If you remember, I’ve been telling you since the last century that you should do something about that,’ she said laughing at her own joke.

‘I’m serious. Really, I need help.’

‘Okay, we should not waste any more time then. I mean, it’s already been three decades!’ And she laughed again while I cringed. ‘Let’s make it happen tonight. Let’s de-virginize you! See you at the bar at 8, okay?’ she said authoritatively and hung up.

I smiled. I could always count on Adu.

I hung up the phone with supreme confidence. It was going to happen tonight. And then I could shake this monkey off my back and get on with my life. I planned to have a great thirtieth birthday.

I went back home from the coffee shop with a happy heart. I had woken up that morning feeling old, fat and very alone. Now I had a plan. I entered my one bedroom apartment and saw that there were books all over the place. It was generally a very neat and tidy place, thanks to my maid, who I noticed had not yet arrived. I surveyed the place. My bookshelf was in a mess and my cushions were all over the floor. The hall, or the living room, was spacious with wooden flooring. Yes, that was where the extra three grand a month from my rent was going, but I loved the flooring. I had a large, white sofa against one wall that I had got painted Prussian blue, a bookshelf against another and bright cushions from Fab India all over the place. There was a cuckoo clock that I had kept even though it had gone dead from too much cuckooing and now only showed the time. The walls were decked with several framed paintings of artists that I loved. One wall had ten miniatures of Salvador Dali’s works. And another, Monet’s lilies from across his lifespan. My bed was large with bright sheets and mismatched pillows that had faded over the years. A bright red chair rested against the window where I sat and looked outside at the row of shops downstairs. This was my home. And I loved it. And right now, it was a mess. Where was my maid?

Just then the doorbell rang and I went to answer it muttering to myself, please let it be her, I don’t want to clean today. Not that I would have cleaned any other day because I’m just not into cleaning. I don’t know how people love to keep scrubbing away and tidying up when there are so many far more important things to do. It wasn’t the maid. It was a large bouquet of flowers from the only man in my life. The only man who had been there for the last thirty years. My dad. I called him up immediately. He was out on his morning jog. I admired the old man for his enthusiasm for sports. If I had his genes, I would have been a model instead of working so hard at being an intellectual.

‘Pops! What’s happening?’ I asked.

‘Koko. Happy birthday!’ he said, panting while breaking into a fast walk rather than stop his exercise totally.

‘Thanks for the flowers. They’re gorgeous!’ I looked at them and they really were gorgeous. I loved flowers. I thought they brightened up the place. But I would never buy any myself because, for me, they were a waste of money. And also I would have to trim them, put them in a vase, maintain them. I didn’t have the patience for all that domesticity.

‘I’m glad you like them. I hope they gave thirty lilies to signify your age? And not less than that?’ he checked. He was always checking things. So what if they had not. How did it matter? But to him, it did and he would call up and reprimand people and tell the entire florist service to be better Indians!

‘Yes, they have, Pops,’ I said exasperatedly and then asked, ‘Where’s Mom?’

‘Oh, she decided to skip the walk today. Her back was hurting from sleeping in a wrong posture last night,’ he answered. I had inherited my mother’s excuses. She was always pretending to fall ill to get out of exercising and, as a result, had wide hips that she was forever complaining about. It was a vicious cycle that she had not got out of for the last twenty-five years.

‘Okay. Anyway, bye Dad. Will call Mom now,’ I said, since there was never anything much I could share with my father except my love.

‘Koko! Remember that you’re thirty now,’ he started his lecture. ‘And it’s time you decided what you want to do with your life. Remember, it’s the last year to sit for the services. So think about it!’ My father had always wanted me to sit for the services because there was ‘nothing better than serving the country’ as he put it. He still hadn’t realized that I had left them eight years ago and had found a career I liked. He just thought it was a hobby and I would eventually become, like him, a ‘servant’ for the government.

I hung up just as the bell rang again. It was my maid. Before I could reprimand her for being late I saw that she had got me a present.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, taking the box from her hand.

‘For your birthday,’ she said, as she went to keep her polythene bag of a purse in the kitchen and start cleaning my house.

‘You know, I was going to scream at you for being late,’ I told her and then asked, ‘Can I open it now?’

‘If you wish.’ Then she said as an afterthought, ‘You know, you’ve never screamed at me in the last eight years I’ve been working for you!’

That was true. I just couldn’t. She did not turn up a number of days and was late most of the time, but she kept my house spotlessly clean, looked after me when I was sick or down with a cold and was completely trustworthy with all my belongings.

I opened the present. It was a candle from Mount Mary church. It was a lovely thought. ‘I prayed for you this morning that you would find a good husband. And you have to light this candle at home to make the wish come true.’ She was in my room, putting a new pillow cover on my pillow. I went over and hugged her. ‘Thank you,’ I said. She smiled.

Then she went back to business and I got a few phone calls from some friends from the animation class and some from a few clients who remembered. I didn’t have too many friends, unlike Aditi, who was always the toast of the town. I kept mostly to myself with my nose buried in some book and with ‘Wi-fi’ entering my life and apartment, the Internet would keep me busy for many hours on some new online course. I was a geek. I looked around my apartment and realized that even my TV was broken and I hadn’t got it fixed. I did not need to.

I went into the kitchen to make myself some tea. I was out of tea. So I thought I would make myself some coffee. I was out of coffee. I shouted out to my maid, ‘Martha, where is the tea and coffee?’ I asked.

‘Top shelf, above washing machine,’ she replied.

Now why would she keep it there, I thought.

She entered the kitchen and explained as if she had read my mind, ‘I cleaned the whole kitchen yesterday. It was quite a mess from when you last tried to cook on Friday.’

‘I was hungry. I made daal,’ I replied.

‘Oh, that’s what it was on the ceiling!’ she mocked. ‘And for future reference, the tea is on the shelf next to the stove since you have a lot of chai and the coffee is next to your coffee machine.’

‘Yes, but I never use it.’

‘Because you’re too lazy to learn. And I make it for you.’ Oh, she knew me so well.

Martha was always right. I didn’t know how to cook. Of all the things I had learnt in my life, cooking was not one of them. I hated cooking. I saw it as a part of being domestic, which I was not. My parents had often wondered how I would manage alone in Mumbai seeing that I didn’t cook, clean, shop for the house and barely knew some groceries and chemists’ numbers. But I told them the trick in running a successful house was to have a great manager. What Mom was to Dad, Martha was to me. My domestic manager. Which reminded me that I needed to call Mom. I dialled her number as I went in to my clean bedroom that smelt like lavender.

‘Many happy returns of the day, darling,’ said my mom on the other end.

‘Thank you, Ma,’ I replied, sitting on the bright blue couch.

‘Tell me, what’s new?’ she asked, stereotypically, hoping I would say there is a man in my life and give her hope that she might have grandchildren one day.

‘I’ve started a new diet with my new dietician,’ I said, full of excitement that was immediately punctured by my mother heaving a long sigh and saying, ‘Why?’

‘Because Mom,’ I said slowly as if I was trying to explain Quantum Physics to a five-year-old, ‘I need to be on a diet! I want to lose some weight. My jeans are not fitting me anymore. I’ve put on three kilos.’

‘Kaveri,’ my mother said sternly. She had named me Kaveri and decided that all short forms were an affront to the beauty of the name, and hence would not call me anything but that. ‘All you need to do is go for a walk once in a while and stop eating muffins. You’ll automatically lose weight. I don’t know why you spend so much money on all these people. You’ve been to some seven dieticians now.’

‘Five,’ I immediately corrected her. She was right as usual, but I didn’t want to let on and give her the power to be right. ‘But I need someone who can understand my lifestyle and yet give me a balanced and healthy diet.’

‘What healthy?’ my mom argued. ‘Eat an apple when hungry. There. Now give me ten thousand rupees for that information since you’re spending that much on someone telling you the same thing!’

I had actually spent tens of thousands of rupees on different slimming centres and dieticians to curb the expanding waist that I had inherited from my mother. But I would always fall off the bandwagon when I became bored and would go off to have muffins at Coffee De. That made me feel better, but it put all the weight back on.

‘I have to go, Ma. I’ll talk to you later.’

‘You have a lovely day and remember I wish that you get married this year.’

‘Great. That at least gives me 365 days to find a man,’ I said cheekily and hung up.

But I had decided, marriage or no marriage, tonight at least, I would get a man!

Aditi and I generally met at the same bar whenever we needed a drink. It was called ‘Float My Boat’ and it had all these little boats as tables and everything nautical attached to it. But the reason why we liked this place wasn’t the ambience, which was strictly okay; it was because of the amazing cocktails the bartender could make for an extremely reasonable price. We never got bored of trying as many as we could till we were buzzed enough to take a cab back home.

On my birthday, the bartender sent us a complimentary long, ice filled, pink drink. We toasted.

‘Cheers!’ I said.

‘To your resolve,’ Aditi replied.

Aditi was a conventionally good looking woman. She had long brown hair, a slim figure and dark eyes. She could have passed off as a model if it hadn’t been for her very bad skin—she had pockmarks left from a severe case of chicken pox in childhood that no amount of make-up could conceal.

We looked around and saw a few men at the bar and a couple sitting at a table. The men didn’t look interesting at all. They were the corporate types in plain blue shirts of various shades and grey trousers. A few even had laptop bags on the floor.

‘Well we can’t start with anyone here,’ I said breaking the silence.

‘Clearly not!’ she agreed. ‘What we need is a list of things that you do
not
want in a man,’ she said. I looked at her questioningly while she continued. ‘See everyone is going to say sense of humour and rich. But what you need to know is that every man does have a sense of humour and most men can fend for themselves at our age. So what is it exactly that you do not want and then eliminate those types of men. Otherwise we’ll end up like them,’ she said and pointed to the couple at the table that had, already bored with each other, started text messaging other people.

I nodded to the group at the bar, ‘
That
for starters,’ I said with a grin.

‘No! Please!’ She stretched her words for effect. ‘No one wants that for starters. Maybe for dessert …’ she punned.

‘You know what I mean. I’m not like you. I can’t do with just anybody,’ I laughed.