Chapter 10: A Solid Plan B
— “Where’s Anuj?” Anand took a sip of his own drink to wash down the flavour of tobacco lingering on his tongue before he grabbed a shot glass.
— “The restroom.” Seher yawned and grabbed one too.
— “Somebody call him. Tell him the shots are here.” Kartik looked at Seher and Veena as if it was their job to make the call.
— “He’ll be back.” Veena rested an elbow on her knee, using it as a forklift to feed herself a piece of Thai spiced chicken. “He’s just gone to take a leak, right?”
Anuj, meanwhile, was stuck in one of the cubicles, sitting on the pot with its lid down. He dropped some maal in the loo while trying to roll and had to redo the joint from scratch. He felt the phone buzz in his pocket as he burnt the part of paper sticking out of his backflip. He put the joint behind his ear, stepped out and answered Kartik’s call. “Yep, dude. Almost there.”
With Anuj back, the entire gang moved to stand in a circle on the designated dancefloor to down the shots with Ahmed. One part or the other of everybody’s body moved to the music. One shot down, Veena danced her way across the circle to Seher, with her eyebrows bouncing up and down on her forehead. Seher was not in the mood for a dance. She rarely was. But then she realised that she needed to shake off the shot more than caring about whether she was dancing or not.
Soon enough the second line of shots burnt down the eight oesophage. Anand shook his head as he felt his ears getting unclogged. Niyati made a loud woohoo noise. Veena just stood in her place to make sure the shot didn’t escape down her nostrils. Kartik felt his scalp tingle. Ahmed, the bartender, never drank on duty except for doing shots with the gang. He needed to be in one of his higher levels of joy before his system could digest alcohol. In that state, when he drank, he felt his insides fill up with a warm feeling. On reaching that state at work, he was inspired to create kickass new cocktails. He collected everyone’s shot glasses on a tray and raised his eyebrows at the joint behind Anuj’s ear. Anuj pointed his head in the direction of the loo. Ahmed just grinned and shook his head.
Anuj grabbed Anand and Seher’s arms and dragged them towards the smoking area like a dad would drag his screaming kids along the aisles of a supermarket. The rest of the gang, including Avantika, followed them. On their way, she told Niyati how surprised she was that the shots were not watered down at all. Niyati patted her back to tell her: this is what you get for hanging out with us.
— “So we’re going to Anand and Kartik’s college buddy’s party?” Anuj lit the joint. Everybody found something or someone to lean against except for Seher and Avantika.
— “That can’t be the only party on the cards. What if that one is a bust?” Seher was known for turning bust parties into memorable and dramatic evenings. She hated herself for that.
— “But what about Anjali?” Kartik realised the tone in which he said that. And now he just wanted to punch himself in the face.
— “Here’s your punishment for being so Anjaliphilic, PK! You skip a turn.” Niyati held smoke in her lungs, leaned towards Avantika and spoke in a softer voice. “PK stands for Punctuality Kartik²⁹. Electronics Anjali’s fantasy boyfriend.” Avantika nodded.
— “Buddy, don’t take this the wrong way.” Anand and Veena exchanged a look as Anand decided to take this one. “I am all for you going for your dream girl but what if it all goes kaput.” There was no question mark at the end of this speculation. “You don’t want to stay in the same party as the girl you might embarrass yourself in front of, right?”
— “I can’t believe this. None of you have faith in me, do you?” It wasn’t really about faith.
— “Oh nooo, we dooo.” Veena reached out to rub his arm. “We’re just looking out for you.”
— “You guys don’t trust me, I always knew it.” It wasn’t about trust either. He believed he was a nice guy and like every nice guy, he deserved a nice girl — like Anjali. And every time, the gang doubted his commitment, he felt they doubted him being a nice guy.
— “It is not that we don’t have faith in you Katti³⁰.” Seher called him Katti whenever he was whining. “Lekin plan B toh banta hai. Nobody wants to be that awkward group that stays around after killing a party.”
Kartik knew that they were all right. But he had been on a quest. And quests could only end victoriously. This was the one thing he had wanted for the last six years of his life and now that it was finally happening, he was going to go for it. He shut himself up with a cigarette, which burnt faster as his drags got deeper and longer.
— “Come on! There’s a joint here!”
— “We’ll allow it this once.” Veena and Anuj had worked out a rule to help the group cut down on cigarettes. Immediately, Niyati pulled out one of her fruity slims and Veena frowned. “Not you. This exception is only for Kartik while we discuss a solid plan B.”
— “Okay fine, I will not light it then.” She put her cigarette hand around Avantika and held onto the lighter with the other. “Avantika and I have been invited to this thing by this guy. He is a musician who has just started his own studio. And the party will be at the studio. It can’t be boring, right?”
— “That’s Enky.” Seher not only knew who Niyati was talking about, she also had been actively pursued by that guy. “I can’t go to Enky’s without going to Vinay and Neeru’s.”
— “Oh crap. The Prajapatis!” Very rarely did Anuj show the social whore that he was. This was one of those times for Anuj. “I’ll have to come for that one.”
— “I thought you weren’t coming to any party this 31st?” Veena kicked Anuj in the shin, just not hard enough.
— “I am not. But if I am heading to even one party, I have to go to Vinay and Neeru’s before or after it.”
— “What nonsense?”
— “You don’t get it! There are some people whose parties you have to go to. Would you miss your boss’s party?”
— “But that is why you became a writer, remember? So that you won’t have a boss whose party you will HAVE to go to.” Anand broke into a coughing fit as he exhaled all the smoke out.
— “When did I say that?”
— “On Holi.” Kartik had been bugged with Anuj’s depression drama. He felt that all the boy needed was some tough love. “On Holi, when you refused to leave the car and come to Anand’s boss’s house because you knew you wouldn’t be able to get high once inside.”
— “We pay you enough to get a good driver, Anand.” Anand impersonated his boss’s stiff voice, holding an invisible coffee mug in one hand and the lining of his invisible suit in the other.
— “This is different. If I step out on New Year’s Eve, I have to go to this party. In fact, both of us will have to show our faces.” He was talking about Seher as well.
— “Why only if you step out?” Veena waved at Ahmed.
— “Because if I step out, there will at least be one picture of me somewhere. On Facebook, Twitter and Google only knows which gutter. They will know.” Anuj sometimes got pissy when despite all the time people spent with him, they couldn’t predict what his next problem with the world would be.
— “Who will know?” Kartik flicked his cigarette off the terrace.
— “Trust me, they will. And you should be on our side, dipshit.” Seher knew that they were definitely going to Prajapatis’ if not Enky’s. “We get to take your girl to a better party from where we will find her.” Worst case scenario: she would have to engineer it.
— “Social whores. Both of you!” When screaming didn’t seem enough, Veena shot Anuj with a fingergun and continued talking at him as he slid down to the floor with his back against the wall. “I liked it better when you were whining about getting out of the house in the morning.”
— “Anuj and Seher are right. If I am going to steal her from her friends, I better take her to a party which is bringing some house down.” Kartik locked palms with Anuj to give him a lift.
— “Thanks, man.”
— “Yes, then you can make sure the neighbourhood also comes.” Seher, who sometimes likened herself to a pop culture superhero, tried riffing with Kartik to make fun of his messing up of the hip hop phrase. Kartik just looked at her curiously and she gave up.
— “I think I agree with Anuj and Seher.” With that Avantika won the least expected vote award.
— “Yo, first-timer, where did you get the tattays to vote?” Veena turned to Seher. “Did I say tattays right this time?” Seher smiled and nodded.
— “Me? I… um… Isn’t this what Niyati would have done?”
— “Like oh, my, starry-eyed surprise!” She hugged Avantika twice and kissed her on her cheek, leaving behind a red mark. “I keep forgetting I’ve run out of my transfer-resistant lipstick!” She handed Avantika a tissue (which was wet because it had been wrapped around her drink). “I knew you would make it. And that is exactly what I would’ve done at that point. It feels so weird to not be inside my own body.”
— “It feels strange to be inside yours. But comfortable now that I have tried.”
Veena and Seher felt goosebumps but they never really got Actorography anyways. Kartik did not get what they were talking about. He sometimes got Actorography and sometimes he didn’t. Anuj rarely paid attention to what Niyati was talking about. While he appreciated Actorography as a bit, he never really believed in it. Anand grinned shadily as he rocked his chin up and down. Nobody loved innuendo as much as Anand did.
— “So it is final then.” Veena officialised it. “We have three parties to go to.”
— “Kartik’s just-get-laid-dude party.” Anuj put an arm around Kartik.
— “Seher and your social whoring orgy.” Kartik gave it back.
— “And some galatta at some studio.” Veena finished the list.
When the joint ended, the group walked back to their seats in slow-motion with acid jazz playing inside their heads. What they missed, if one had asked Seher, were designer suits and four people including a 100-pound Chinese man. Except, their pretend heist movie walk kept getting broken up by hordes of people who were now moving to and from the bar, the smoking spot, the loo, their tables, somewhere, everywhere. It was so bad that they gave up on doing it in slow motion and then they gave up on imagining themselves doing it in slow motion.
— “Ghoar Kalyug!” Anand whined as soon as they reached their table. “One can’t do a decent heist movie walk without bumping shoulders with people anymore.”
— “Can I bring my camera?” Avantika raised her hand as Veena and Anand waved at Ahmed and pointed at three of the plates on the table, marking them for repeats.
— “Shaant new girl, shaant. We aren’t even sure if you’re going to be joining us tomorrow.” Seher had decided that she liked the new girl. She didn’t seem to be stepping on her toes or anybody else’s for that matter.
— “If I’m not in, then we all go out in flames.” Avantika, at which point, got up like she had had enough of this bullshit. She tore open her invisible trenchcoat to show off a set of invisible explosives which she had strapped around herself. One hand pulled an invisible something else from out of her invisible trenchcoat’s invisible pocket. “This, in my hand, is the detonator.”
— “Shit just got real.” Anand sat back and looked at Veena to see where this was headed.
— “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” Veena picked her drink up, crossed her legs and looked Avantika in the eye.
— “Umm…” Avantika fumbled for a second and looked at Niyati for what to do next when everybody burst out laughing.
²⁹ Kartik was always asked if he was South Indian. To which, he had learnt to say: “I don’t have an h in my name.” One of his colleagues, who was actually from Chennai, once told him: “If you were working in an office in Chennai, your office name would definitely be Punctuality Karthik, macha…” When Veena heard about Punctuality Kartik, she started referring to Anjali as Electronics Anjali. She felt that if they turned the entire thing into a gag, Kartik might just move on. The gang then attempted to make fake wedding plans for the shubh vivaah of Electronics Anjali and Punctuality Kartik to make him laugh it off. That idea had failed miserably. The gang, nudged by Niyati, were committed to the irony in their narration. So much so that Kartik failed to see it as ironic.
³⁰ Katti because every time Kartik was upset about something, he clammed up just like a angry 6-year-old who said ‘katti’ and would not speak to you until a ‘bucchi’ was announced by him. Kartik had regretted bringing up the word ‘katti’ in front of Veena ever since. She had mentioned it to Seher, who had decided to call him that almost every time his tone was that of a whining kid (which was ridiculously often).
