Chapter 47: Missed Calls and Missed Social Cues
Meanwhile, in Bangkok Niyati’s phone buzzed with Anuj’s “Situation update?” message. She confidently typed her reply: “All under control.” This was before Seher pulled off the car chase and the stunt. If Anuj had asked for a situation update after the stunt, he would’ve had to deal with radio silence from Niyati’s end. That would’ve meant he would officially have to give up on his summer romance filter (which he was used to seeing Anand and Veena with). If Veena didn’t show up for the kiss at midnight, this problem was bigger than something that could be solved in one night. And there would be no Avantika. He would’ve tried to make it upto Ishani, maybe tell her about the previous deaths and his (unformed) plans for the next one. Although, he wasn’t sure if Ishani would be as quick on her feet or as committed to the bit as Avantika.
— “So Sara, what TV shows do you watch?” Kartik’s strides became smaller and less confident.
— “I don’t watch TV.”
— “I mean not on TV but online.”
— “Yeah, even online. I am more of a movies person.”
— “Which was your favourite movie last year?”
— “Lincoln.” Sara was considerably bugged that Kartik was doing all the talking and Anand not so much. “Anand, did you catch Lincoln?”
— “The one with the vampires?”
— “Nooo… The one with Daniel Day Lewis! You must watch that one. Daniel Day Lewis really nails it, like he said in his Oscar speech: Because Lincoln was killed by an actor, actors will forever be repaying that karmic debt.”
— “That sounds like something Niyati would have said.” Kartik smiled to himself.
— “I only end up watching Hindi movies.” Anand gave up on his imaginary yellow pad on which he was analysing his relationship with Veena and decided to be a part of the conversation. “English, I watch some of the fun ones but mostly I stick to TV shows.” He made eye contact with Sara exactly once, for a second, before looking somewhere in the distance.
That was about when they heard these noises coming from somewhere in the distance: The bassline of MIA’s Born Free, a girl’s scream, followed by a few guys screaming, followed by a crashing noise.
“Was that Veena? I thought I heard Veena scream. What was that?” Anand stepped into the middle of the street to look around as the rest of the caravan came to a halt. “I can’t see a crash anywhere on this road. I need to call Veena and check.”
Of course, Veena was going to be fine. She was with Seher and proxy-Niyati. He couldn’t lose the car though, not right now. Everything was going according to plan. He was going to take Veena to Madras Cafe with his grandparents.
— “She isn’t picking up!” Anand walked in the direction he thought he thought he heard the sounds coming from. “Veena isn’t picking up.” The group followed him. “We should have just gone home and fought it out.”
— “What shit. You guys never fight anything out.”
— “Yeah, you reach a conclusion before anything escalates to a screaming match.”
— “How do you guys know?”
— “We are almost always there. Sometimes we even die for your resolution.”
— “Don’t worry, Anand. She’ll be fine.” Sara realised that this wasn’t her game to play and it was time to give up before she started hating herself for trying. The lights in her head start flashing the ‘too damaged’ signal. (They usually came with a beeping alarm.)
As Anand called Veena over and over again, he remembered all the fights they had ever had by themselves and except for the duvet incident, he couldn’t think of a single one where they threw nonsensicles at each other.
— “Her number’s busy now. You think they’re calling an ambulance. Should I call an ambulance? Anuj, Kartik, how much cash do you guys have on you? In case, we need to pay off some cops.”
— “Anand, you are beginning to sound more and more like me.” Kartik and Anuj started looking into their wallets, counting the red and green notes, when they spotted Anand’s car cruising into the lane they were walking on.
Anand started jogging towards the car. When they came face to face, his car stopped. He was already hugging Veena through the window. Adele’s Someone like you was oozing out of the car like molten cheese bursting out from the inside of a jalapeno popper.
— “Fuck, I’m glad you are alright. I thought I heard you scream and then there was this huge crash.” From over Veena’s shoulder he spotted the airgun in the gearbox, as he moved his upperbody out of the car window to look Veena in the eyes. “So you found the gun?”
— “Yes, and we are going to have a conversation about that.” Veena glared into Anand’s soul. “But not now, maybe later.”
— “What was that crash?” Anand’s hand was still holding the back of her head.
— “It has been a long night and I have so much to tell you, Danan.”
— “Are all of you fine?” Anand threw a couple of quick glances, one at Seher and the other at Avantika.
— “A-okay, commander.” Avantika smiled from the back and Seher gave him a two-finger salute as she lit a cigarette with her other hand.
— “Good.” Anand took a step back to look at the car. Except for the tyres, everything seemed alright.
— “I believe I found your hiding place.” Veena stepped out of the car and handed him the spare snow can Avantika had found with the gun.
— “That’s okay. I know you hide cigarettes in the flush tank.”
— “Who told you?”
— “Nobody. When you had gone to Chennai last, the flush tank had broken and I had taken to repairing it.” They hugged once again as Seher coughed and Anand parted his chest from Veena’s face. “You were telling me something.”
— “Yes, yes… I need to tell you that I love you. I may not be sure of anything else in the world. But I am sure that I love you.”
— “Veena, I love you too…” Anand took Veena’s hands in his. “But I couldn’t make any sense out of what you just said. What was the anything else part?”
— “I am scared, Anand.”
— “Scared of what? Commitment?”
— “Of course not, you moron. Will you let me finish?” She took a deep breath. “I am scared that our life won’t be the same once we get married. And we have been accelerating our lifeplans rather than meeting the schedule. We arrived early at falling in love, we arrived early at moving in, and now we are arriving early at being engaged.” Yet another deep breath, followed by the beginning of the stare of the moment of truth. “Soon we will be too early for marriage and then we will have early babies, who we will have to wake up early in the morning to send to school. I don’t think I am ready for too early, Anand. I am afraid we will mess it all up.”
— “You think I am not terrified? We have so much more to do.” Anand was still as rock as only his voice modulated. “We have yet to live abroad for a few years. I mean I can’t even think of being a dad right now.”
— “It is not just about the babies. I was terrified all night because I thought nothing would be the same once we decided to get married.” Veena was going up and down on her toes. “This romance, this adventure, this madness. I don’t think I’ve had enough of any of this.”
— “Neither have I.”
— “I started being terrified of the things that made us us. I spent what seemed like hours freaking out about being a lotus-eater, trapped in these suspended moments of happiness and life would pass us by even before we knew it.”
— “What’s a lotus-eater?”
— “Remember the Percy Jackson movie we watched?” Anuj interrupted.
— “Oh, got it.” Anand waved Anuj off as his eyes didn’t leave Veena’s.
— “That isn’t important. What is important is that I learnt that we are not lotus eaters. Life isn’t turning into a stagnating pool of bouncing mosquito larvae. We are living it. Taking a doodle from Seher’s notepad: Pot, alcohol, banter — that is what makes us, us. If people think and feel that we are a bunch of codependent deviants who can’t think for ourselves unless we have one of us around, I have news for them. Yes, we are. We love being who we are. It helps us be better people. I would shamelessly use the word hivemind but that’s not who we are. We are more hedonistic, more human than a technology-derived name. We are a cheesemind. Mind you, I didn’t say cheeseheads because our minds are not not a part of each other. They have melded into one giant hunk of neurotic cheese with varying levels of viscosity. We taste fucking good on almost anything, and even better with good alcohol. We look fucking golden, when baked. We are all blue and fancy when we need to be and Amul when nobody’s looking. And we are only going to get better as we grow older.”
— “Being a part of this gang, can we have a say in what we are called?”
— “No.” Veena pointed a fingergun in Kartik’s direction while still looking at Anand.
— “This cheesemind business is a little scary.” Anand couldn’t help but think of his favourite snack as a kid. “How about cheeselings? With ketchup, considering all the gang violence.”
— “How about The Cheese Mafia?” Avantika cocked a finger gun, making the noise with her tongue and teeth. Everybody stared at her as she dropped her hand and pretended like she wasn’t there.
— “The Golden Crust?” Anuj, the writer, had to have a more indirect approach.
— “Indian Cheese League?” Kartik still had IPL on his mind.
— “Why does everything need to be prefixed with Indian and suffixed with League?”
— “NO. We are a cheesemind, and that’s a ruling.” She stepped forward till the tips of her shoes were touching the tips of Anand’s. “It is not a name, it is a common noun.” Both her fingerguns were raised, threatening everyone in their range.
— “Now that you’ve stepped onto the front foot, go for it.” Seher grinned as she looked at Anand and Veena with her summer romance filter — the one that she and Anuj had come up with to see Anand and Veena from when they were dating.
— “There’s more?”
— “Danan, I want us to get married but not before the first half of twenty fifteen. I want us to get engaged but not before the second half of twenty fourteen. I do want to get engaged to get engaged tonight though.” Veena dropped her gun hands and lifted a foot up in the air to stand only on one leg. “Now are you going to ask me what you have to or not?”
— “Veena, I love you. Will you be my pre-fiancee?” Anand dropped to his knee faster than anything. He pulled the platinum anklet from his pocket.
— “Yes, yes, a million times, yes!” She planted her foot firmly on his thigh as he tied the anklet. “Okay, guys, it is almost 11:30, if we want to be at a party for Auld lang syne, then I need everyone to get into the car in…” She looked at her bare wrist. “Right about now!”
The car filled up in no time. David and Ishani joined Avantika and Anuj in the back. Sara, Seher and Kartik were in the middle row.
— “You are allowed to keep the airgun, by the way.” Veena put the airgun in the glovebox.
— “Okay, whatever. As long as you’re coming to Madras Cafe next weekend.”
The drive to the next party, which was exactly one song long, had Veena silent with one hand on Anand’s thigh as he drove and the other out the window. The only time she had her hands to herself (or rather to her phone) was when she sent a text to Nalini-amma to tell her she just got pre-engaged. The reply said: “What are you bringing for me for not telling your dad about it till you’re ready?” Veena looked at the bottle of Glenlivet planted in the slot between the two front seats. “Guys, the Glenlivet is off limits.” She announced as she took a picture of the bottle and whatsapped it to Nalini-amma.
— “I’ll have to steal another bottle from the next party.” Seher leaned forward till her face was right between Anand and Veena’s. “Although, the best bottle at the party we are going to might be a HAIG.” For which, she got a kiss on her cheek from Veena who put the bottle of Glenlivet in the glovebox with the gun.
— “Take a right here and look for the only old Bandra house.” David shouted from the back. “It has wood balconies.”
Although after Anand took the right, it wasn’t exactly difficult to spot the house. It was the only ‘house’ in the lane filled with apartment buildings and it had people and noise and music pouring out of every orifice.
— “There’s this stand-up comic I am meeting at this party here.” Seher, who hadn’t shifted back to her seat, started going through her phone as she spoke to Veena. “Some of the things he says really beckons the French Press.” While this was a strange expression for most people in the car, it wasn’t for Veena and Avantika. Or Anuj. Or Anand or Kartik. But of course, Anand, Kartik and Avantika were never allowed to acknowledge that they knew what that meant.
— “What are you telling me this for?” Veena gave her a grin but without the mischief in her eyes. “Like you ever ask for my permission before you jump someone.”
— “Later.” Seher ruffled Veena’s hair as some of it dropped forward to cover Veena’s face.
The caravan got out of the car with the three travellers they had picked up on their way there. The joint they were smoking in the car wasn’t done yet so they stood next to the car to finish it in silence. Anand and Veena were oblivious to everything else around them. The rest could hear the chattering and the music from the party. People entered and exited the bungalow like it was Time itself. Some of these people waved at the smoking circle and some from the smoking circle waved right back.
Through the night and the next few weeks, David, of course, told the story of the craziest people he got to hang out with. “By the end of it all, they were twice proposed, half engaged… Like what does that even mean, man?” Sara lamented to her friends about how all the good guys were taken. Ishani texted Anuj the next day: “That was crazy! Happy New Year!”
⁷⁷ Nonsensicles are ice cold accusations which are made completely out of emotions and not an ounce of logic.
⁷⁸ ICYMI earlier: According to Actorography, the stare of the moment of truth is the kind of look that connects the exact centres of a person’s retinae to the exact centres of the other person’s retinae. If you master this stare, you can commit to the scene during any performance.
