Having stuffed an omelette with few pieces of crispy potato chips inside a bun I was about to gobble it up but right then, the doorbell had chimed annoyingly. It was early in November. The ordeal of having to spend a reluctant Monday-morning in Pune had already started with the new dawn. Gunjan, my host, was out for work and his corny apartment in Koregaon Park was confiscated by me.
The sweeper boy seldom used to come at that time to collect the dustbin-treasure. I always have the audacity to open the door without even peering out through the peephole despite knowing the fact that most of the sweeper boys turn out to be the murderer at length—which the eternal episodes of Crime Petrol have taught us from our very childhood. I was in my best attire that day: wearing but the only towel wrapping up around my waist for a frugal sauna bath. The doorbell had been hooted for the third time. I opened the door and encountered a someone who, for sure, wasn't coming for the dustbin.
“Do you have that lighter?” she asked looking straight into my eyes. Such an encounter was never expected. I was, wearing the only towel, standing shirtless in front of a stranger exposing my emaciated physique. She was tall. Demurred in a silky white night suit, tucking her hands inside the pockets standing right in front of me.
Her pierced nose was embellished with a tiny nose-jewel and there was a small dot-like mole right beneath the edge of her lower lip. Her dark black eyes were constantly staring straight into my eyes which rather had taken me aback. I did notice everything with an astute observation at just one go. Damn! I was clueless.
“Lighter?” she asked again, this time knitting her eyebrows.
“Lighter?” I asked her back, surprised, holding a half eaten bun with potato chips jutting out of it, and of course, not knowing actually what to say. I chewed the remnant of whatever little food that was already stuffed inside my mouth and the crunchy sound of the chips did seriously made the situation a little bit more awkward.
“Never mind.” she entered my house (okay, my friend’s house) almost shoving the door and I did nothing but stood still like a dumbass still wrapping the only goddamn towel. She stumbled through the table, pulled out the drawer and created a hell lot of mess. How could she just do that ignoring my existence in this house? I wondered. But that was just a beginning. Then she pulled out the couch, shuffled the newspapers and magazines, the mattress of a bed and started wrecking havoc in the entire room. Finally she found whatever she was searching for so long—the lighter. The degree of my impatience was rising to an extreme level. All I wanted her to leave at no time. She pulled two cigarettes out of the packet and offered me one.
“No, Thanks.” I shook my head clumsily, trying to magnify the mere nuisance which I was bearing for this long.
“As expected.” she mumbled and hastily stepped out of the room. Huff, I exhaled a sigh of relief. Before I could shut the door she turned back. Christ, not again. I thought.
“Nice legs by the way.” she added and that sort of mockery was completely unnecessary. And then she entered the elevator. What the bug! I shut the door with a thud and took a vow of not to open the door until and unless there is a confirmation of the outsider. Bitch! How does Gunjan bear such a lousy neighbor? Before the doorbell would chime again, I whizzed off to the bathroom and took a lazy shower.
“That was a living tsunami I saw today, you see.” I narrated the whole thing when Gunjan arrived later that evening, quite exaggerating the whole mess which she had created. He seemed to be cared absolutely nothing about it and on the contrary, he cracked out laughing like a nitwit.
“So she’s back, eh?” he wondered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Nothing, I mean, yeah, welcome to Pune, bro!” He kept on laughing stuffing the water bottles inside the fridge.
“She’s like the monsoon rain you know; comes to Pune once a year.”
“She seemed to be the hurricane instead.” I said.
“So, didn’t you like her?”
“Don’t you want to know who she is?” asked Gunjan with such a contorted facial expression for which even I began to doubt myself for a second if somehow I knew her.
“Definitely she isn’t the Queen Elizabeth. Why should I bother to know about her?” I said.
“Just because of the irrefutable fact that she’s an amazing lady!” he said.
“She’s a crazy bitch.” I said applying more gravity to the word ‘crazy’.
“Actually, she’s not. You gonna long for her company once you get to know her. I bet you.”
“Forget it. I’m already getting headache thinking about it.”
“Tell me, you gonna buy me beer for tonight if you get me proved that I’m wrong.” he challenged.
“Just leave that shit.” I denied.
“Well, at least let’s go and get that goddamn lighter.”
“Forget it.” I denied again.
“You do not have the guts, yeah?”
I was unknowingly biting my nails and then I stopped doing it when my guts were being questioned. “Say that again?” I said. Somewhere deep down, that sensitive thing called male ego was being hurt now.
“No, I’m not saying that you’re saying so. What I’m saying is…”
“Hold on.” I cracked my knuckles, wondered a little about what to say and then decided to bargain. “So what am I supposed to be getting if I win?”
He jumped up and sat on the couch. With all his excitement filling right up to the brim he asked “well, what do you want?”
“A car— Aston Martin DB11” I said, “and one thousand pounds in my account and a blank cheque with your…”
“Okay, hold on. Let me decide.” he cut me off without letting me finish my list of requirements. “If I lose, beer will be from my end for next seven days.”
“With complementary crispy chicken nugget. Every—Single—Day.” I added.
I accepted the challenge being so sure about the fact that I was to win. I was not to buy him any beer at any cost.
Both of us went to the 3rd floor. Gunjan pressed the doorbell of her room twice and we did wait more than a minute to get the door opened.
“Hey! Look who’s coming?” she was astonished to see Gunjan barely noticing my presence. She’s wearing a pair of cat eye glass and I was not pretty sure whether she was looking good with the glass or the specs itself looked good on her. “Don’t say you guys are here for the lighter.” she said and cracked out laughing. I tried to figure out what actually was so funny. She welcomed us inside. The evergreen retro of Mohammad Rafi shaab was rolling on “abhi na jao chhodkar ki dil abhi bhara nahi.” She lowered the volume of the music player.
I shot a panoramic view of her room. It was too early to judge her. Little did I know a girl like her could have a good number of eye-catching books stacked on the shelf. Some of them were piled up like a mountain in a wooden crib. It was quite beautifully decorated. A pleasant smell of aromatic candles was rafting inside the room. There was a sensual poster of Marilyn Monroe taped on the wall next to her bed and some photographs were clipped on the string lights twinkling on the corner wall.
“So… would I be wrong to assume that you brought your guest here to introduce to me?”
“Yeah, kind of. Where have you been all these days?” he asked.
She fetched a bundle of UNO cards and dropped on her reading table and then shot a sharp glance at me ignoring his question.
“We’ve already met.” she said looking at me “my goodness! I saw him naked.” and she laughed aloud cupping her face with her palms.
“No!” I protested. “I was wearing… well, a towel.” Gunjan looked at me in disbelief. I tried to decode his exaggerated facial expression which was portraying aur-ye-tu-mujhe-kab-batane-wala-tha? sort of interrogation.
“Dude, I swear” I laughed. “I was in…” I ginned stupidly.
“Just relax. I’m just kidding. That’s fine.” she said
That was not fine. Out of embarrassment I thought of getting out of her room in no time.
“What do wanna have: tea-coffee-milk shake?” she asked in banter way.
“Isn’t there any fourth option available?” Gunjan asked.
“Actually, we just came here to fetch his lighter.” I said.
“Well, that is her lighter indeed.” Gunjan corrected me as politely as he could. And this time I shot that same aur ye tu mujhe kab batane wala tha?glance at him with murderous rage. That was an antique metallic lighter which she inherited from her grandmother—he let me know. It was gifted to her grandma by a Portuguese lady during the period of Annexation of Goa in 1961. And god knows, prior to this, who gifted this lighter to whom generation after generation since the evolution of the mankind.
“Oh, I see. Well, actually I thought—”
“That I am a desperate chain smoker?” she said cutting me off.
She laughed and fetched a packet of cigarette from the drawer and started spinning on her fingers.
“I collect cigarettes for fun. I do not burn and smoke them.” she said with a pitying grimace.
“Cool.” I said and I thought how weird that was! “And you have a good collection of books too.” I shot a panoramic view of her room again. That’s what we usually do when we visit someone for first time and sometimes when we’re not so sure of what we are doing and what we should talk about.
“Yes. I do.” she smiled and went off to the kitchen.
Gunjan shot a blank look at me.
“Nothing.” he shook his head and kept quite.
“Dude, she’s not that bitchy as I thought.” I whispered to him.
“I told you.” he smirked.
“Wait. Are you crazy? The best thing is yet to be.” he said.
I was not sure about what he was talking about. Meanwhile she came out of the kitchen with three wine-glasses.
“Guys, let me get something special for you.”
“Whaaao!” Gunjan’s face got lit up just like a kid when he’s given a candy in his hand.
“Pleased to have you both around.” she said stretching out a bottle of red wine from the fridge and offering it to Gunjan. It took just a few seconds for him to pour it in the glasses. We all sat on a Kashmiri silk carpet on the floor. She had grabbed a cushion in one hand and the glass in another.
“For this beautiful evening.” Gunjan toasted the glass.
“Cheers.” Our glasses clinked.
It was an old red wine which, as she told, was to be found nowhere else in this country apart from Nashik. She knew lot more about vineyards and wine than any one of us did. I sniffed it and sipped a little from the glass and tasted the tangy wrath of grapes daggling on my tongue. Gunjan appreciated it for nth number of times. I took a sip and started to aerate it swilling it round my mouth.
“Savory!” I appreciated the wine and she nodded.
“How did you get this cut mark here?” she asked somberly pointing near my eye.
“Almost twenty one years old. Childhood memories, you know.” I said.
“Childhood memories.” she mumbled and she seemed to be repeating it in her mind. Then she started shuffling the UNO cards. She didn’t ask anything further about the cut mark but started distributing the cards. We played three rounds and each time I lost pathetically. The clock ticked eight and then we finally decided to leave.
“What’s your plan for tomorrow?” she asked looking at Gunjan on the doorway. Weekends have never been any special neither for him, nor for me.
“Nothing as such.” He said.
“Superb. Tomorrow a friend of mine is throwing a birthday party and you guys are going with me.” she announced.
“What say?” he pushed it to me.
“What?” I said, awkwardly. “we barely know anybody there.”
“Just ignore him. We are in!” he announced.
“Did we know each other until yesterday?” she asked me.
“We still don’t know each other. Do we?” I said. “In fact, I haven’t even asked your name!”
“Why so hurry, mister?” she smiled. “Nobody is running away. See you guys tomorrow!” She said goodnight and shut the door.
We came back to our room. I sloppily sat on the couch and asked Gunjan who she was. He said nothing but shot a smile. I asked him again.
“She isn’t the Queen Elizabeth for sure. Why should you bother to know about her?” he quipped.
“Just out of the curiosity.” I said. The vinous tang of the wine was still lingering on my tongue. I wasn’t so sure whether I was getting drunk or what. But it just started making me feel good.
He came and stood right in front of me and asked “so, tell me, did you like her?”
“Tell me, which beer do you want to have?” I said.
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