After nursing himself with a drink and feeling unnerved to stay any longer without company on that unexpectedly warm October afternoon, he left for New York sooner than planned. The entire drive felt like driving through a lazy haze that refused to clear, his mind empty and crowded at once from the unofficial and harmless invitation she'd given him that morning.
When he reached home well before the hour of the party, he served himself a chilled beer, throwing Daadima into a state of directionless worry, "Is everything ok, Maan beta? You never drink this early in the day..."
He shook his head in response, waving her off and wandered wordless into the faint light of the setting sun that hung over his balcony. Below, he saw the thin gatherings of people streaming in, along with uniformed caterers going about the last of the arrangements at the food stalls.
He stood there still, unseeing, an emptiness that hadn't been there days ago encroaching inside him. There was a part of him that was a surprising contrast to all that he'd become and still it was infuriating when only that small part of him felt alive that evening.
Five days - one of which spent a good hundred odd miles away from her - was all it had taken to tell him that he was already an addict.
Moving in a mild drunken stupor, he went down to to the party, planning to stay on only until it would take him to finish a beer. But there had been another drunkenness that had taken over him when he saw her smiling, laughing and giggling while being held in between Meera and Yash as they danced to a slow melody. A long green printed skirt lapped around her ankles and she matched it with a peach cowl neck top, her sleeves short, dropping just below her shoulder and tied at ends in delicate bows which made her look the most dainty he'd seen a woman to be.
There was a moment when she closed her eyes and raised her face up to the sky as if in prayer with a settling smile on her lips when a sudden flurry of her hair came loose and fell over her temples just as he'd wished in the elevator. Her hair tie had snapped and her hair came flooding shiny black as a raven's nest in tumble on her small shoulders. He wanted to look away then, but when in the next instant she turned in his direction and took notice of him, he was secretly glad he hadn't done so.
His eyes followed her once she decoupled herself from her friends and took to the dessert counter. When he realized she had isolated herself far from where the party bustle was, he found himself moving to the same quiet corner she was at. There had been a momentary temptation to slightly shift to the right and take the elevator back to his apartment, but then she'd shook her head tipping it back and scooped her hair to one side revealing the long curve of her neck and he'd stopped considering the bait that it was.
Before walking over though, he'd ordered another glass of liquid courage as reinforcements; it was better that the loss of control over his body and mind came from raw liquor than the overpowering sense of mindlessness that took over when he was in her proximity.
Of course, she talked and all he could muster processing was the flutter of her eyes, the stretch of her stained peach lips and how she came to rest her hand atop her knee in a fragile slide. Everything was a utter and full understanding when he drank her in after having stayed a whole day away from her. He faintly caught that she'd taken offense to him for not having asked about her leg and so in kind, she preferred to keep him at bay by calling them apartment mates. He didn't think he wanted it any other way, however, there had been a fringe of disappointment that had curled her voice then and he began considering if he wanted to change some of that.
Meera and Yash approached them soon after without leaving much for him to say and he appreciated their presence, all until the three framed a picture of everything that was lost to him now.
Yash had his arm over Geet, dragging her to him with a undisguised brotherly fondness - which could not be mistaken for anything else - while he kept at Meera as if she was the one vixen who was there to bite his head off. But the fact that they had to work so hard to pretend to hate each other gave another vibe which he choose to ignore and hoped that the sliver of his curious interest in their friend, wasn't any bit obvious as they were.
When he doubted himself to contribute to their conversation in his drunken state and was left to nothing but wonder why he'd come down to start with, he excused himself to find the only way he was going to outlive this period of senseless indulgence he'd given into - to drink away his regret, the indecision that had slipped in during a weak moment at the balcony.
But when he reached the bar, she was there too thanking and questioning his intentions in the same breath. If anything, he wanted to tell her that she was giving him more credit than he deserved, when he'd put her through all of which each of the three interns had gone through in their term of months on one evening and yet she'd not pulled back from the silent challenge he'd place in front of her. Simply put, he couldn't decide if it was desperation in wanting the job or if it had been the mere thrill of a wager that had kept her still at his desk till night. And there she was rubbing salt into his wounds. That he couldn't have possibly known she would endure his tests and eventually come out winning his approval to have had planned in advance on redeeming her dignity from the very people she'd lost it to, the morning before. Of course, it had been a spur of the moment decision, however a thoughtful one at that, to let her handle the meeting. But she needn't know that. That he had in vain tried to ascertain the motives behind any of her actions until that day - a true enigma she was, if he ever be asked.
He could see, how it might be troubling if one were to read her thoughts and gestures as if they were their own. And he was in no mood to give her the small comfort she sought when she'd just goaded him into that very choice.
"You wiggle your toes inside your shoes when you are nervous" He saw her shake with a fright that was real in her eyes, a lividness bringing a bright flush to her face, "Your fingers get twisted like a fisherman's knot. And..." She held his gaze as if she was counting seconds for him to out her most guarded secret to everyone and he continued despite the self-reproach that he heard, "Your eyes look anywhere but the person intimidating you..."
She waited a beat for his words to sink in, then in a tone that only betrayed an obvious effort that was needed to keep any trace of ire concealed, she said, "You want to know what you give away, Maan? That you enjoy every bit of it when you do that to me..."
He didn't feel the need to explain it was just the opposite of what she had it to be - that at most times he was left wondering what effect he had on her, that is if he did have an effect to begin with. It took him a full second to realize that the anger that rose hot in his veins was over his own doing. To have let it all come down to this - an argument that was of no significance to either of them when it neither proved nor disproved any of their claims. When there hadn't been a woman in his life before who let him gamble his good sense in return for petty squabbles, it confused him what it was about her that made him give her an air of importance to all that she was.
In the minutes he left her behind at the bar, he had made his way to the other end where people where clearing the dance floor for a short reprieve. His mind occupied itself taking notice of a man with a reluctant step and a shy smile walking over to the DJ to make a song request and hand his ipod.
"This one goes to Ruchi from her husband Aakash..." The DJ gave a shout out soon after and the familiar soft tones of the piano rushed though the speakers. An easy drunken hum followed and then there was the sharp beats of a tabla that brought a forgotten smile to his face, the tune one of longing and of an intense emotion that he, for the first time, had some vague understanding of.
Aasman juk jaaye
Tera chehra jab nazar aaye...
Oh!...Tera chehra jab nazar aaye...
The image of her shaking her head earlier, to remove the wisps of hair that had fallen over her face came to him, her face giving a knowing smile in response to the mischief that her hair teased her with.
Indeed, if that was what happened to worldly affairs and to that of beings beyond the earthly realm, then he needn't ask of a reason why everything that she was, was a novelty in itself for him.
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