Undesired Memories

She woke up to the shrill ringing of the phone in the living room. She pulled the pillow over her head. The ringing stopped and she could hear the muffled voice of her father speaking into the phone. She peered at the clock kept on the bedside table, it declared 6:45. She heard her mother’s voice coming from the living room too. The commotion in the living room didn’t let her go back to sleep.

Reluctantly she pulled herself out of the bed and walked dragging her sleepy legs into the living room. Her father held the newspaper in his hand as he turned to look at her. She saw that her mother was wiping her wet cheeks with the end of her saree. Her mother turned around and hugged her warmly. She was surprised at the sudden show of emotions by her.

“What’s the matter?” She asked rubbing her eyes, not returning her hug.
 
Her father showed her the newspaper.
“Jaipur Girl Tops CA Exams”

The front page of the newspaper declared. She looked at her passport sized photo in the news item, the black eyes and hair slick with oil and tied tightly at the back confirmed it was her. She read the name at the bottom of the photograph again. It did read Neeta Sharma. The phone rang again as she read the news item. Her father picked it up.

“Yes, we saw the news.” He spoke into the phone, “Yes, yes we are very proud of her.”

Neeta looked at him, she could see genuine happiness in his eyes. The pride showed in his face. The wrinkles of his old age seemed to have disappeared. Her mother still sobbing hadn’t said anything yet. The small family hardly spoke with each other. It was a rare show of emotions that Neeta was witnessing from her parents. Somewhere in her heart of hearts she didn’t like it. There was a void inside her which told her everything was a farce. Her father turned around and gave her a rare bright smile. She threw the newspaper on the sofa and went to her room without saying a word.

She closed the door, fell on her bed, buried her head in the white pillow and wept softly.

“You know that I never wanted a girl.”

Her father’s voice played inside her head like an old record stuck in the player. Even though it had been two years since she had overheard him saying this to her mother in the middle of the night in their bedroom, she could still feel the cold sting in her ears. Upon hearing these words in an instant she had felt like an orphan. All she had done was ask him for money, so that she could take up tutorials for her CA exams. He had coldly refused it.

“It is enough that you have completed your graduation”, he had said.

Her father had always been cold to her. Even when she was a child he would never pick her up in his arms, even if he did, he did it like a duty which had to be performed. He was always warm to her cousin Ashish, showering him with goodies and affection whenever he came to their house. He never showed the same affection to Neeta, not even when she came first in the whole school, or when she won the district badminton championship and not even when she was sick of typhoid.

She felt a hand touch her softly on her head. She lifted her head and saw him sitting beside her. The pillow had dark marks of her tears and her cheeks were wet. She wiped her cheeks and sat up, moving away from him.

The first time Neeta had confronted him with the question of why she was an unwanted child, he was shocked. He didn’t get angry, he was shocked. He didn’t say anything. Neeta kept pushing him with questions like, why didn’t he want a girl and why didn’t they just aborted her, but he didn’t utter a single word. He had taken it all on his heart and remained silent.

“You know when I was sixteen or seventeen years old I had a huge crush on one of my distant cousins. Her name was Aditi.” Her father spoke looking away from Neeta. She was still sobbing softly. She couldn’t understand why he was suddenly talking to her like that.

“Aditi was seven or eight years older to me and a cousin so anything between us was simply out of question.” He continued speaking with a sigh as if he was trying to heave off something heavy from his chest.

“Well, Aditi got married into a rich family in Delhi and the same year I got admission in engineering in Delhi University. Her parents wanted me to visit her at least once a month so that she wouldn’t feel lonely or miss home.” He paused and looked at his hands as if trying to read the lines. Neeta looked at him intently.

“Then one day, I received a call from her mother at around eight in the night, her voice was panic stricken. She wanted me to immediately go to Aditi’s house. Her neighbors had called her and she thought something was wrong.” He stopped speaking and pulled off his spectacles. With his thumb and index finger he massaged his eyes as if they were tired of staring for long at something.

“I went there and saw that some fire fighters were leaving the house which was semi burned. There was a group of people standing near the house and who were now dispersing. The neighbors told me that the family had gone to the hospital. I found Aditi’s husband waiting in the hospital lobby. He took me to a room, where I saw Aditi’s charred body lying naked on the steel stretcher. Her clothes were stuck to her blackened body like her skin. The almond shaped eyes were reduced to hollow sockets. Her once beautiful face was now only a burnt skeleton skull. Aditi’s husband told me that the gas cylinder in the kitchen blew up while she was alone in the house. Her whole family had gone out of town in the morning.” He stopped talking again and looked at the floor. Neeta could see that his eyes were filled with water at the corners.

“It was later on I learned that her in-laws had been continuously torturing her for dowry. Her parents had already sold their house and their farm lands to marry her off. Still after the marriage the in-laws continued to harass her for more. Nobody spoke about it openly but we all knew how Aditi had died.

“I was broken from inside to see the ugly burnt body of the girl who had once been so beautiful, who had almost been my first love. It was then that I had made up my mind not to have a girl child. I didn’t have the courage to support a girl against this cruel world.” The father wiped his forehead with his palm. Neeta looked at him. He seemed tired, as if within moments he had grown ten years older. Neeta went over to where her father sat on the bed. She kneeled beside him with her hands on her knees.

Her mother stood at the door with the end of her saree on her mouth, sobbing occasionally. Her father looked at Neeta’s eyes as tears blurred his vision. Her lips were curved into a smile, as her eyes became moist too. The morning sun rose through the bedroom window behind her.

The Text

Partly based on a tweet posted by @ChiefSanjay

He took the mobile out of his pocket, and opened the message he had received the night before. It had brought a smile on his face. He read the message again. He still couldn’t believe he understood what the message had really meant. The text brought a silly grin on his face again. A dimple appeared on his fair cheeks, the dimple she had so slyly praised in her text last night. 

He tapped the screen of the phone and typed the three word text. He tapped the screen again and within seconds the mobile flashed “Message Delivered”. He waited for her to reply. There was a slight hint of fear in his anticipation, the fear of rejection. He checked the phone, there was no reply. He tapped it on his palm impatiently.

Half an hour had passed. There was still no reply.

****

Her eyes hurt as she came out of the mall into the sun on this May afternoon. She pulled the shades tucked on her head over her eyes. The mobile message alert rang. Her lips curved into a smile when she saw the name of the sender. She opened the message and read. The three words meant more than the thousands of messages they had exchanged in the one year that they had known each other.

She pressed the reply button and started to type on the QWERTY keypad. The smile never left her lips. Her reply would be obvious, but first she wanted to play with him. She walked on the pavement. People coming towards the mall avoided colliding with her. She walked oblivious to the world around her. Her high heels clicked on the tiled footpath. She had to cross the road. She was still thinking about the words she should choose to tease him. The warm wind blew her dark brown hair across her face.

She turned towards the zebra crossing as it struck her what her reply would be. She started to type on the mobile again, as she stepped off the pavement. A man almost crashed into her. The lights on the far side of the road turned from red to green. Her ankles twisted, as she tried to gain her balance. She tripped and fell in the middle of the road.

****

“Yes I will get the tomatoes too”, the taxi driver shouted into his mobile. He saw the traffic light turn from red to green and pressed the accelerator pedal. The Taxi shot from its place. The wife was still shouting into the phone giving him a long list of green groceries to get on his way back home. With one hand he held the phone to his right ear, and with the left hand he changed the gear. Before he could bring the hand on the steering he saw a girl fall a few yards away from the white and black alternating stripes right in front of his taxi.

As the girl fell her dark glasses smashed on the asphalt surface and her phone flew from her hands. The girl fell in a way that the upper half of her petite body was directly in line with the left tyres of the taxi. The taxi driver brought both his hands on the steering wheel and pressed on the brake pedal. The yellow and black cab swerved violently with a loud screeching noise. It was too late. The taxi driver felt the rear tyre jerk and with the jerk came a soft crushing noise. He grimaced as he imagined the bones crush under the weight of the vehicle.

****

For the hundredth time he checked his cellphone for her reply. It had been several hours. The message box was still empty.

Resurrection

A gush of cold wind greeted her face as she walked out on to the pavement. She had never known December evenings to be so chilly in Mumbai. She could hear the waves lash on the concrete on the other side of the road. Families, kids, friends, lovers, loners sitting by the sea talking, playing, laughing, cuddling and gazing at the night sky. She looked at the sign of the restaurant she had come out of, the red neon lights glared back at her. She fumbled in her handbag and took out a pack of Marlboro Lights. She took out a cigarette and put it on her full lips, leaving a pink impression on the butt of the cigarette. She put her hand inside the bag again, groped around a bit and cursed under her breath. 

Manicured fingers appeared near her lips clutching a lighter with a flickering light. She raised her eyes and a man almost materialized in front of her attached to the fingers. In a single glance she noticed his fair skin, deep set black eyes, jawbones and thick jet black hair on his head. She inserted the tip of her cigarette into the flame holding it between her two fingers and took a deep puff. The smoke warmed her body immediately. She looked at the man again who was now trying to light his own cigarette but the wind was too strong.

She took another puff from her cigarette and said, “thank you”. A cloud of smoke escaped her mouth.

The man looked up at her, nodded and smiled. She turned her eyes towards the car which was making all sorts of noises trying to find a decent parking space. Pedestrians passed her by, everyone seemed happy.

“Everything alright”, asked a deep voice. She turned around and saw the man with the cigarette speaking to her. She nodded. Her eyes fell on the black silk shirt and faded blue jeans that he wore on his athletic body. 

“Hi I am Kartick”, he said. She turned around and looked at his hand extended towards her. She didn’t take it.

“And you are…” he asked. “Not interested”, she said, completing his sentence. 

“Would you mind if I bought you a drink”, he asked with a chuckle.

“My husband would”, she said. He smiled. She looked away again towards the sea, putting her cigarette back on her lips. He looked at her body curvy at all the right places. Her knee length maroon colored dress fluttered in the wind as she hugged her slender figure. She turned around and found him admiring her body.

“And where is he”, he asked.

“In there, with his friends. It’s the eve of our anniversary.” she said nodding her head towards the restaurant. “And you are here, smoking, all alone”, he said. “Yeah he was talking to his friends so I sneaked out for a smoke. And why the hell am I even talking to you”, she said and started walking towards the street. She stopped as a car whizzed by her. A throng of children, with a bunch of balloons reaching for the streetlight avoided hitting her as they ran past by.

“I bet he won’t notice it if you sneak out with me”, she heard the voice behind her again, but continued to look towards the other side of the street. “Just one drink and you can be back before he even blinks”.

She turned around and looked into his black eyes. His eyes told her she won’t be able to escape.

“Look, you don’t even know my name”, she tried once again.

“Why do I have to know your name, it’s just a drink”, he replied, with a smile. 

Was it the smile or his eyes, she thought that she was unable to resist. She rolled her eyes in submission.

“There’s a bar just around the corner”, he said, as if he got the cue and started to walk.

“Just one drink and don’t get any ideas”, she followed him.

They entered a crowded bar and took two seats at the corner of the counter as Neil Diamond started crooning ‘Girl you’ll be a woman soon…’ They both ordered Vodka with some ice.

“So what were you doing outside”, he asked her.

“I told you I had come out for a smoke”, she gulped down the vodka and kept the glass on the counter, the ice cubes rattled.

“On the eve of your anniversary you leave your husband while you are in the middle of a dinner”, he said taking a sip of his drink with a lop-sided smile. She noticed the dimple on his right cheek. She gestured to the bartender and asked for another drink. She drank the liquid noisily. 

“Look here Mister, in three years of my marriage I have learned that my husband loves his business more than he loves me. And even during the dinner he was busy discussing business with his friends while his friends’ wives couldn’t stop gossiping. And I couldn’t stand any of those, so I came out. That’s it.” She said, finished her drink in one gulp and slammed the glass on the counter. He gestured to the bartender, who promptly repeated their drinks.

She finished her third drink in a couple of gulps without even blinking.

“I am done. You asked to buy me one drink I have had three, that’s a bonus for you. I am leaving. Thank you.” 

She tried to get off the stool, but she stumbled on her high heels. He jumped off his stool and held her by her hands. 

“Don’t even think about it, I am fine”, she said and pulled herself free but stumbled again. He held her by her shoulders and guided her back to the stool. 

“I have to go, my husband would be looking for me."

Something slipped from her hand and fell on the floor with a thud. Kartick bent down and picked it up. It was her mobile phone with a soft fabric cover with three alphabets embroidered in pink “Ira”. “I don’t think he would be or he would have called you by now. Ira”, he said. She looked at him with a hint of playfulness in her eyes.

“I bet he and his friends wouldn’t even bother about you even if you didn’t turn up for the rest of the night”, he said. She checked her watch it was almost half an hour since she had come out of the restaurant. She looked at his eyes, they were laughing mischievously. “I dare you not to go back”, he said in a mischievous tone.

“You mean you want me to spend the night with a complete stranger”, she said. 

“Who said we are strangers”, he replied. The bar started to revolve around her head. The bar tender pushed another glass filled with ice and a transparent liquid. She took a sip. 

“Can you do it”, she heard him say. 

“Do what”, she asked. 

“Spend the whole night with a ‘stranger’”, he nudged emphasizing on the word stranger. She looked at him with blurred eyes.

She put the glass down and got off the stool again. He immediately got off the stool and put his arms around her waist. She looked at his eyes but didn’t protest. She put her hand on his shoulders and they slowly walked out of the bar. They walked to a black BMW sedan waiting on the curb. He opened the door and she slid into the seat beside the driver’s. He took the wheels and started the engine. She threw her head back and closed her eyes.

Pictures of a wedding in a beach resort in Madh Islands started to flash in her mind. An entrance decorated with tulips, lilies and a thousand red roses declared the names of the bride and the groom. She was surrounded by her family and her best friend stood smiling by her side. Decked up in the finest jewelry and a red silk saree with intricate patterns of golden strands hand woven by the artists from Varanasi she sat on a chair which looked like was made for the queen herself. Even though it was an arranged marriage, it was exactly what she had dreamed of. He was the only son of her father’s friend and business partner who had studied at Wharton and had come back to India to look after the empire that their fathers had created. She saw images of her and him skiing on the Swiss Alps during their honeymoon. The first time they made love lying on the rug by the fireside, they had slept naked wrapped in each others arms through the night. After the short honeymoon he hardly got any time for her. She couldn’t remember when they got intimate again. Love making was reduced to a ritual, sometimes they would go on without making love for several weeks. She was tired of it all. Would her love life resurrect was all she was thinking while sitting in the restaurant listening to him rant about his business with his friends.

Ira opened her eyes as she felt the car take a sharp turn and enter the parking lot of a tall building on Pedar road. She opened the door and came out. She could feel a dull ache at the back of her head as she tried to stand on her high heels. Before she could think, his hands were around her waist and they were walking towards the lift.

As they entered the lift, she could feel the warmth of his body. She put her hands around his waist and he pulled her closer. She felt his mushy lips on hers and took in the smell of his after shave. She felt his hand slide lower down her back and raise her skirt. She felt the flesh of his hand gently caressing her thighs. The lift opened on the thirtieth floor and he moved back his hands to her waist. He took out a key ring from his pocket and opened a mahogany door. His lips were already on hers even before they had entered the apartment. With his fingers he slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders and began kissing her neck. She moaned in pleasure. His lips worked their way down, as her dress fell on the ground. Before she knew it his naked body was wrapped around hers in a fit of passion.

The next morning Ira woke up to the bright sunlight coming in from the bay windows. She was aware that she wasn’t wearing anything inside the sheets. She remembered what had happened last night, and immediately her lips curved into a smile. Her body felt wonderful and her soul felt satisfied. She saw a bouquet of red roses on the table beside the bed. She picked it up, brought it close and felt the soft petals on her face. She took in the sweet fragrance and then noticed a small tag at the bottom. She held the tag in her fingers and read, “To my beautiful wife on our third anniversary – Kartick”. She smiled and turned around he was still lying asleep beside her. She ruffled his hair, he opened his eyes. “Happy anniversary”, she said, took his head in her arm and kissed his lips.