Chapter 45: The Situation Update
The girls got out of the car one after the other at the Delhi party venue in Bandra. Seher returned to staring at her phone, Avantika and Veena straightened their hair and clothes. Avantika pulled out each straight strand of hair from her earrings as she looked up to see the party lights on various floors. Seher just put fingers into her curls and tucked a whole bunch behind her ears without looking up from her phone. She pulled off her earrings and dropped them into her bag.
“Fucking lund bazaar, bro.” These were the first words the girls heard as they walked towards the building atrium. Those words were followed by three other voices that piggybacked onto the first one to diss a party upstairs. Seher’s ears perked up. That first voice seemed familiar. She stretched her arm out to block Veena and Avantika from walking any further.
Lo behold, five guys emerged from the well-lit entrance into the darker outdoors. They were wearing Ed Hardy t-shirts and tight jeans. Seher froze for a moment when she ended up making eye contact with the leader of the pack. “Holy fucktits.”
The guys stopped walking as well. They looked the three girls up and down, their eyeballs literally moving from the girls’ tits to their faces to their hips, then feet and then back to the tits. The leader had a brainwave. “It’s her! With her friends.” He did not notice that Niyati had been replaced by Avantika.
— “It’s you. With your friends.” He smiled at Seher.
— “Let’s go! We have another party to go, remember?” Avantika, who knew of the Delhi story but had no idea what the boys looked like, stepped past Seher’s invisible laxman rekha.
— “I know the party I want to go to.” The leader continued. “It is Happy New Year tonight and looks like it is going to be a Happy New Year.” He ran his fingers through his gelled back hair, which looked more like he was trying to comb his hair using his big fat bracelet. “Hi, Sandra.”
— “Oh no, not these douchebags.” Veena groaned.
— “V, get into the fucking car.” Seher jumped up the hood of the car and slid to the other side. Veena and Avantika rushed into the car.
— “Don’t leave so soon.” The guy jumped forward and grabbed Veena’s door before it shut.
— “V, PULL HARD!” Seher, who had the engine running yanked the gear into reverse and stepped onto the accelerator. The speed at which the car ran backwards, along with all the strength in both of Veena’s arms made sure the door banged shut. She quickly pushed a button to purr the glass shut.
— “Look! I have goosebumps!” Veena pulled her hand back on realising that Seher was busy getting them out. So she showed her hand to Avantika.
– “Get away from the middle! I can’t see through the rearview.” Seher shouted as the car reversed faster. The reversing alarm clucking wildly with it. She watched the guys piling themselves into a bigger, shinier, imported, more original and more powerful version of Anand’s car.
— “SANDRA BABY! I AM COMING FOR YOU!” The guy screamed with his chest and one bicep dangling out of the car.
Veena put on her seatbelt. Avantika grabbed onto the handle above her window. Seher turned the wheel wildly to the left at the corner of the compound, screeching its rear end into the front side of the compound. Then she took a quick right to exit through the gate which was at that corner. The car jumped a little on the speedbreaker at the gate as she didn’t bother slowing down at all. The boys, of course, followed them. While picking speed and dodging past the couple of cars on the street, Seher tossed her phone to Veena. “Plug it in, play MIA’s Born Free.”
Tied down to her seat by the seat belt, Veena fumbled with the aux wire till she managed to plug it in. She swiped down Seher’s tracklist with an urgency that made her miss the track twice. Avantika put a hand on Seher’s shoulder. “Do you think we can lose them?”
“I think so.” Seher didn’t smile. Her feet dropped her shoes off and plugged themselves onto the pedals. Her hands gripped the wheel with further confidence as the opening drums of MIA’s Born Free made way for the synth to take off. She looked at Avantika in the mirror. “Take care of my hair.” Avantika held Seher’s hair up and pushed a chopstick (which she fished out of her bag) through her hair.
“Veenay, pump the volume right up. I need to think.” Seher had to think of a way out. If these fuckers were now making Bombay their regular hotspot then it would only be time before she ran into them again. This running every time was not going to help. On some random night, she was sure she’d run into them on a random street corner in a randomly sozzled state. She started missing some lanes (where they had definitely seen cops or a barricade that evening), turning into ones where she was sure there weren’t any cops.
— “What are you doing? There are cops in that lane! We could get rid of those bastards by just stopping near a cop van.”
— “Sometimes, you have to take things into your own hands.”
— “Seher, stop! Please!”
— “V, I love you. I am fucking thrilled that you have found the right life, in the right city, with the right guy, but sometimes violence is the answer.”
— “How did you know I was going to say, violence is not the answer?”
— “Because that is exactly what you’ve been saying to Axl Rose over and over again, every time you see his nostrils beginning to flare.” It didn’t exactly happen a lot but there were at least three isolated incidents that Seher could remember including the one in Delhi with this same batch of boys.
— “Niyati says, right before you pretend to whisper something in Anand’s ear when you’re actually just tickling the ridges with your tongue. Like how you give a dog a treat every time he doesn’t poop on the couch.”
— “You guys know of that?”
— “Everybody does. Actorography says that in life we’re always manipulating each other but it is alright. The manipulated is always aware but will do the manipulatee’s bidding because the manipulated loves the manipulatee.” Avantika put her hands around Seher’s headrest and started giving her a shoulder rub. “So what’s the plan, ustad?”
— “I don’t have one yet, but this baapchod needs to go down.” Seher revved the car harder. She could hear the guys’ howls getting louder right on her tail. She grabbed the bottle of Glenlivet from between the seats but it slipped and fell to the floor. “Avantika, the bottle! Also, do you remember all the streets with cops on them?”
— “Yes, and yes.” Avantika ducked to stuff her hand in the gap between the driver’s seat and the floor to get the bottle.
— “Great, you’re my navigator. Make sure I don’t turn into any of them.”
— “Yes, ma’am.” She said from under the seat while pulling the bottle out. It clanked against a can of some kind.
— “We need to get on a stretch of road, long enough, without any cops.” She thought for a moment before she added, “Or dividers. No dividers.”
— “Yes, ma’am.” Avantika put the bottle in the slot between the two front seats as she ducked once again to pull out one of the snow cans that Anand had forgotten there, along with a small, black, plastic gun. “What do I do with these?”
— “That bastard! He bought the airgun after all.” Veena’s words spoke of betrayal but her tone was a happy one. “I am calling him.” She was happy she found Anand’s hiding spot.
— “Avantika, confiscate her phone.” Seher took a giant swig off the bottle — big enough for you to wonder if the bubbles were ever going to stop rising from her mouth.
— “Yes, ma’am.” She pushed between the two seats and snatched Veena’s phone. “Sorry, this is a national emergency.” Veena just held onto her seat wondering how Avantika was managing all of this with the constantly changing sense of gravity.
— “Fuck.” Seher took a deep breath as she put the bottle down. Suddenly, she was glad that she had just given that long speech. “Now, hand me that gun.”
— “Yes, ma’am.” Avantika checked the gun’s magazine to see if there were any tiny yellow balls lodged into the slit with a spring. “There are no pellets in here.”
— “Doesn’t matter, just cock it and hand it over.”
— “Yes, ma’am.” She dropped it between Seher’s thighs as Seher’s hands were latched onto the wheel.
“I don’t wanna live for tomorrow, I push my life today/I throw this in your face when I see you/I got something to say” The chorus blasted on loop as Seher turned a myriad lefts and rights, taking a U-turn to get out of there the minute Avantika would remind her of there being cops at the other end of the lane. This went on for about one more play of the song before they landed on a stretch of road, which was fairly empty. She shifted to a lower gear and pushed the accelerator further down to make her car growl.
Veena didn’t want her to get into any kind of a competition with the assholes. “Are we going to race to prove who has a bigger dick now? Really?” Or as the gang called it: Veenafying, where the intention was to pacify but the method was always to condescend. Seher didn’t care enough to dignify Veena’s allegation with a response. She just laughed. Her heart pounded as she felt the alcohol percolate into her capillaries.
The big red car, with giant stickers of orange flames on either of its sides, was bumper to bumper with Anand’s car in no time. “Hey baby! WOOHOOOO!”
Seher jacked the gear stick back, forth and sideways, accelerated and smiled. “Veena, I am about to do something that you can never tell Anand about.” And even before Veena could react to that, Anand’s car shot about thirty feet ahead of the big red car following them.
Seher pushed the brakes hard as MIA’s processed screams tore through the speakers, “Oh Lord? whoever you are, yeah come out, wherever you are…” One hand spun the steering wheel to the right and the other pulled the handbrake till they turned around completely. The moment the car paused to face the other direction, Seher slammed the handbrake down, shifted gears and rammed her foot onto the accelerator. Veena screamed through the turn.
Seher moved ahead at an alarmingly casual speed after the tire-burning U-turn. She drove with her left hand. Her right hand grabbed the plastic gun from between her legs to thrust it out exactly when the car passed Ed Hardy. His hands were preparing to take a U-turn. (His face was looking out his window, making a kissy face at her.) She pulled the trigger feeling the spring inside the gun snap as it made a loud popping noise. Even without a pellet being shot in his face, it didn’t stop the big guy from losing control of his wheel.
Anand’s car zoomed ahead as one heard screeching sounds and a crash coming from somewhere in the back. Avantika pulled her legs up as she turned around to check on their ‘tail’. “Enemy vehicle down. I repeat, the target has been taken down. We are no longer being tailed.” She made sure her voice had some radio static as she reported to the captain.
A few rickshaw-wallahs had stopped smoking their beedis and chattering when they saw the two cars race by. The red car had gone through a giant canvas curtain that had been pulled over the void of an old Bandra bungalow being replaced by a fancier modern building. The rickshaw-wallahs started clapping and hooting as the watchman sleeping outside the gate was startled awake by a car flying at a whisker’s distance from him. Seher stopped for a moment by the rick guys.
— “Zara check karlo and call an ambulance if necessary.” She handed out a few big red notes to them. “Kya bolega?”
— “Ek dum woh film Talaash maafaq thhaa saab!” A rickshaw-wallah took the notes from her to split them among his friends. He continued without even looking up at Seher. “Woh gaadi aaya, aise turn maara jaise koi bhoot khada ho raaste ke beech mein, aur phir seedha andar!”
— “Shaabaash, mere sher.” Seher drove ahead and Veena’s phone (which had been sliding from side to side on the middle row of seats) started playing John Mayer’s Who says we can’t get stoned.
— “Can I have my phone back now? That is Anand calling.”
— “What?” Seher turned down the volume of the car stereo for John Mayer to be heard better.
— “Can I have my phone back now?”
— “Yes, but on one condition. You are not going to say anything.” Seher took the first turn she found out of the road of the accident. “You are just going to ask him where he is so that we can go pick them up.”
— “Yes, ma’am.” Veena tried to impersonate Avantika’s soldier voice but the glad that she was on getting her phone back did not let her do the voice right.
— “The nation would like to thank you for your services, jawaan.” Avantika handed Veena her phone back. “The nation is also very proud of you for not losing your shit in the heat of battle.”
— “I’m a girl, so shouldn’t it be jawaani?” You can’t expect better Hindi from a Tam girl.
— “Time for step 2.” Seher grabbed her own phone from the dashboard.
— “There is a step 2?” Avantika was still laughing at Veena’s Hindi.
— “There is always a step 2. In this case, I am going to be texting one of my tabloid friends with a tip.” She said the words out loud as she swyped the text in. “Delhi bigshot just crashed his car in Bandra.”
— “Okay, okay, shut up.” Veena swiped her phone to see that Anand’s call was now a missed call. “Look what you did now!” She tried calling him back. “Is he calling either of you? His phone’s busy.”
* * *
Rewind a few minutes: The walking heads of David, Sara, Ishani and our boys were floating in a lane towards the studio. They decided to roll one more joint on the way because they wished they had booze or a car. David had broken his first sweat as he could feel the roots of certain strands on his beard itch. “This walking was not exactly a great idea, was it?”
“I’m good. We’ll sober up enough to get smashed all over again.” Sara laughed, looking at Anand, who waved his hands while shrugging to say that he agreed. He then looked at Kartik to see what he had to say, thus unconsciously dissipating the tension Sara felt she was having with him. Being in an inertial state and with strangers, Anand’s body had switched to social mode a while ago as his mind had returned to orbiting the centre of the dancefloor from the Prajapati party.
Kartik, meanwhile, was unable to handle the silence. He wanted to call Veena and ask her what her deal was, and where all of this was heading. He wanted to know if he should start this being a different person than one who obsessed over one person for over half a decade before reaching a point where his mind boiled over. He even tried his hand at chatting up Sara in the gaps when Anand was stuck at the thought Anuj had left him with. Anand had put SWOT in bold letters in the Threats column of the imaginary yellow pad. “Maybe that is the problem. I analyse everything like it is an investment that has to have returns.”
Anuj, on the other hand, was actually smiling. He was walking down the road with Ishani, who cared enough to throw a drink in his face and then not tell the rest of the party that he was faking it. He liked Ishani but he didn’t want to pursue her. Maybe if the girls didn’t return and Anand got dumped. Also, it would become his job to be Anand’s wingman in his — maybe — forthcoming single days. He then turned around to give Sara and Anand a glance and exhaled in relief. At least, he wouldn’t have to try hard in case of the dreadful maybe. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to even charm a miffed Ishani, forget wingman a totally minced Anand. Maybe Anand would just want to sit back somewhere and drink. Then there was also Avantika who had won his respect that evening. With Avantika on his mind, he got a little impatient, pulled his phone out and whatsapped the one person he could rely on for a honest and straightforward update — Niyati. “Situation update?”
⁷⁵According to Actorography, if you could count three incidents when something has occurred, you are allowed to say ‘all the time’ or ‘every time’.
