Tales Of Madras
Exhilaration
The meeting neared its end. Vivek waited for his manager’s sad attempts at jokes to diffuse the tension that had built up over the past half hour. After it ended with the usual “Let’s go!” Vivek went to his seat and kept checking the time. His manager left at eight minutes past three. He waited five minutes before packing up his stuff.
“Did you finish the documentation?” Aishwarya said as he got up from his seat.
Vivek’s eyes widened. He had forgotten yet again.
“Will do it later,” Vivek shrugged.
“It’s been over a week Vivek!” Aishwarya said crossly. “Your last working day is in two weeks. We won’t have time to go over — ”
“I’ll work on it over the weekend,” Vivek said, raising his hands while walking backward. He turned around. “Nobody’s going to read it anyway.”
“How can we if you don’t finish it?” Merwyn said without looking away from his monitor.
Vivek didn’t reply and continued towards the door. Aishwarya began speaking again but he had already plugged in his earbuds.
He stepped into the sunlight and walked at a brisk pace. He exited through the massive entrance to the IT park and continued to the metro station, where he boarded the train to CMBT. He took out his cellphone and opened the news app. Eight stops later, he alighted from the train engrossed in an article and headed towards the turnstiles. He was almost there when he heard the voice of a woman. She was running towards the same turnstile and motioning to him to step aside.
“Excuse me! I need to catch that train,” she said, breathing heavily.
Vivek ignored her and proceeded to exit. The woman glared at him and swore under her breath as she swiped her card to enter. Vivek looked away from his phone to see her make it to the platform just as the train began to leave. He turned his attention back to his phone and headed to parking.
Vivek pulled his car out of the parking lot and turned on the FM. He reached the street lined with fruit stalls on both sides and decided to buy some fruits for home. He parked his car on the street blocking three-fourths of a tea stall, discounted the vendor’s glares, and walked back to the nearest fruit stall. The shopkeeper was waving a long bristled cleaning brush to drive away flies.
“How much for the mangoes?” Vivek asked him.
“250 per kilo,” he said.
“Let’s make it 200,” Vivek said.
“That’s too much of a difference, sir.”
After a few seconds of bargaining, the shopkeeper reluctantly agreed to reduce the rate to 225.
Vivek handed him the money and, to the shopkeeper’s chagrin, took a handful of grapes and popped a couple into his mouth as he left.
His cellphone buzzed as he got into the car. He sat down and saw that it was Aishwarya. He silenced the call and started the engine. After Aishwarya gave up, he ordered his voice assistant to call Vidya.
“Will drop her off in a few minutes,” Vidya said.
“Okay, but I want to talk to you about something. Can you wait for a few minutes?”
“Where are you?”
“Fruit street, but I will be there soon.”
Vivek cut the call and started singing along. His phone buzzed again and he saw Merwyn’s name flash on the screen. He promptly silenced his phone and continued singing.
He lined up at the last traffic light on the way home beyond which was his favorite stretch of the drive — the roads widened, and the number of vehicles lessened. As he waited behind the traffic line for the light to turn green, he noticed the Audi to his left. It was identical to his except it was colored white. The driver looked like he was in his twenties with a girl in the passenger seat. The boy caught Vivek’s eye and revved his car. Not to be outdone by a punk, Vivek did the same. The light turned green and off they went. For a while, they were neck and neck before the boy gave up, and Vivek zoomed ahead in exhilaration, momentarily forgetting about everything else.
He reached home in record time to find Vidya playing with Saranya — their four-year-old — on the porch and felt a surge of anxiety regarding what was to come. Saranya ran towards him in glee as he got out of the car. He pulled her into a bear hug.
“Had fun?” Vivek said.
“Yes appa, we went to the beach. Mum got me this,” she replied, smiling and shaking the pinwheel.
“Great! Now, do you want to eat these mangoes?”
“Yeah!” she screamed in joy.
“Go on in,” he said. He put her down and handed her the bag.
“Careful, it’s heavy,” Vivek said as she ran towards Vidya.
“Bye ma,” Saranya said, hugging her.
“See you soon Saro,” Vidya smiled. She was sitting on the stairs in front of the doorway.
“Want to come in?” Vivek asked Vidya.
Vidya didn’t reply. Vivek sat down beside her and pulled out a cigarette.
“I have to leave soon. Can we do this quick?” Vidya said, fiddling with her phone.
Vivek didn’t reply until he had lit his cigarette and taken a couple of puffs.
“Meera wants to expand her business,” he finally said. He waited for her to say something but she didn’t. He continued, “And feels it’s necessary to move to Bangalore.”
Vidya looked at him aghast.
“I handed in my resignation letter last week. We will be moving in a month or so,” Vivek said.
“And you’re telling me now?” Vidya said with anger.
“It’s temporary and we will be back in a year if business picks up.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Vivek didn’t reply.
“We’re supposed to discuss these things before you make a decision.”
“Listen, nobody’s stopping you from visiting. We aren’t going very far anyway.”
“Then why doesn’t she drive back and forth for her business trips?” Vidya snapped. She stood up.
“Don’t create a scene here. Let’s go in — ”
“Shut up!”
She waited for her breathing to calm down before saying, “She doesn’t even like Saro. And you care about nothing yourself. I can’t trust you two to take care of her in Chennai, let alone in Bangalore.”
“How dare you!” Vivek’s voice rose. “She’s trying, I’m trying. We’re doing this for Saro-”
“The hell you are! Saro won’t like it there without me,” she shouted.
Vivek stood up.
“We gave it a lot of thought before we made this decision. We hoped you’d understand.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m trying my best. I will do all I can to make this work. You know what, if you find it hard to drive up there, I will bring her here twice a month — ”
He winced as Vidya chucked the toy car at his face as hard as she could, wiped a tear from her eye, and left without looking back. It had hit him square on his nose and his eyes began to water. Meera stepped out to check on him.
“It’s OK,” he said.
“I told you not to tell her now,” Meera said, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.
“Trust me, this is nothing.”
They walked in to see Saro poking her head out of her room. She was on the verge of tears. Meera rushed to the study to rejoin her call. Vivek picked Saro up and swung her about. With some effort and a lot of lies, Vivek managed to pacify Saro. They managed to squeeze in a couple of rounds of snakes and ladders before the maid heralded dinnertime. The aroma of dosa wafted into the game room and the doorbell rang. Salivating, Vivek picked Saro up and ran to the dinner table and past the maid who was on the way to answer the door. He set the giggling Saro down and rubbed his hands when the maid returned and told him that there were police officers at the gate.
Vivek grabbed the gate keys and stepped out. The police officer asked him to open the gate and stepped in after he did so.
“Vivek Muthusamy?”
“Yes,” Vivek said.
“You were driving on OMR at 4.09pm today?” the officer said pointing to the car.
Vivek answered after a moment.
“Yes. What’s this about?”
“You’re under arrest.”
“What?”
“Your race led to the death of a toddler waiting at the bus stand.”
“But I didn’t hit anyone.” Vivek’s voice was the highest it had ever been.
“No, but your fellow racer did. Let’s go,” the officer motioned to the pair of constables standing by to take him in.
Vivek refused to be held by the constables. He saw Meera and Saranya in the doorway. Meera was trying to get Saranya to go in. The constables tried to take Vivek to the back of the jeep as he struggled and shouted.
“But how am I responsible? This isn’t fair!”
