Chapter 13: Party Number One
Anand parked his SUV right outside the gate of the tall building they were supposed to enter. Two years into his relationship with Veena, he had switched his sedan for an SUV. A few houses in the building had their Christmas lights on. Two of the balconies had people standing on them. One on the seventh floor and the other on the fourteenth. The people on the seventh floor looked too old to be the party the gang was invited to.
Kartik stepped forward and isolated himself from the group before he turned around to face them. Everybody pretended like they had seen an iceberg.
— “What happened?” Except for Avantika, who took the iceberg seriously.
— “Today is not any other day. This is not any other party.” Kartik paused to run a hand through his hair to invoke some confidence. “Stars have been moving towards their positions only so that tonight they could align themselves to be in my favour. And WE are not going to do anything to mess with the will of the stars.”
— “You’re not really making any sense.”
— “Ssh, I’m getting there. So where was I?”
— “Will of the stars, buddy.”
— “Yes, the will of the stars. It is the will of the stars that I meet Anjali tonight at this party. It is the will of the stars that you guys behave yourselves. You are not going to make fun of me. Anand, I’m going to have to do this on my own. So you are going to try and keep the idiots talking, I don’t want anyone to come at me. Veena, your job is to spot Anjali and let me know where she is so that it doesn’t look like I am desperately looking for her. Seher, you are going to turn down at least half a dozen boys here and a few dozen over the course of the evening. Make sure you don’t throw drinks in their faces. Your hatred for the cliché that is mankind is well-documented. Avantika, I don’t know what you could do to mess this up, but if you’re Niyati tonight then don’t come by flashing your brightness. It makes my discomfort look twice as much. Anuj, wait till I fail before you die. And finally — ”
— “Here, take a few swigs and pass it on.” Avantika had pulled out a bottle of Sprite while Kartik was still in the middle of his long speech.
— “What is this?”
— “Vodka.”
— “Brilliant job, new Niyati. I hate walking into parties with so much sobriety on my mind.” Seher beamed as Kartik took a swig and did a spit-take.
— “You didn’t mix it with anything?” He wiped his lips.
— “I am going to tell you something that I have told every dealer who has ever come over to deliver.” Anuj put his hands on Kartik’s shoulder.
— “What?”
— “If you want to hang around, you have got to roll one.”
— “How does that help me?”
— “It doesn’t.” Anuj didn’t laugh. “But it takes care of the weight you’ve been throwing around.” He turned Kartik around, pushed him to move along as the rest moved with them.
— “Kartik, I believe you will be fine. Just go with the flow.” Veena took the bottle from Kartik and took a sip. “How much vodka IS in this?”
— “About ninety percent, I wasn’t able to decide how strong to make it. So I kept pouring the Sprite out till about this much was left.”
— “You didn’t pour it into a glass?”
— “And do what with all that Sprite? Drink it?”
Anand returned the bottle to Kartik as he slowed down and walked in step with him. The only times Anand had ever had paternal conversations³³ were with his coaches. The all-games coach cum PE teacher at school and then the Mechanics professor cum football coach in college. “You’ll be fine. Just take a few more sips, man up and don’t forget to smile before you talk to her.”
Nobody said a word as they stood in the all-mirrors elevator. Avantika checked herself out. Anuj stared at the etchings on the mirror on the ceiling. Kartik stared at his own feet. Veena checked out Anand and herself in the mirror closest to them. Seher and Anand looked at their phones. Anand was looking for the event page on Facebook to check the flat number. He did not want to be the guy who bugged the neighbours by ringing the wrong doorbell. Anuj had a better idea when the doors beeped and slid open. “Sssh… Just follow the bassline.”
Vishal, the host of this party, was Anand’s and Kartik’s classmate in college. He had been in investment banking since his international masters in business management. Anand and Vishal had worked on one side-project together. A friend from Anand’s batch at the IIM had approached them with Google’s idea of an April Fool’s joke for a business idea — ask companies to send them documents and deliver free print-outs but with ads on the back. (In case you’re curious: the idea worked like a charm. The major business providers were of course from the non-profit sector. The advertisers could not decide if they wanted to be on the other side of the page or not.)
Vishal had hired a DJ and flare bartenders. He had also made sure that every bottle of booze at the party cost him more than a grand and a half. Seher, on walking in, would take a picture of those bottles and tweet it with the caption: “IT IS ON!”
Eighteen people from Anand and Kartik’s batch of sixty stuck to their engineering jobs. Seventeen of them did not show up that night. Mostly because all eighteen of them had not been invited. Ten others would not make it but that was because all ten of them were either in the United States of America or Bangalore or Gurgaon. There would be friends from other colleges and batches who had pursued a similar line of work. There were people of at least two different nationalities at the party. There were two green baize tables with their own attendants (both in bow-ties and black silk vests) — one was for poker (rental) and the other was a pool table (owned). There was some cocaine floating around, which Vishal was not aware of when the party started but would consume at some point.
He himself had a gang of eight. Four of them were girlfriends. Three of them had never had a job, and one of them had promised to quit as soon as the wedding date drew closer. There were twice as many guys at the party as there were girls. This misrepresentation had irked Vishal a bit, including made him wonder if he should’ve gotten the expensive, white female bartenders. The quarter priced, brown, male bartenders were all wearing fedoras and had soul patches.
Anjali’s college group (including her ex) was already there. Anjali was not. She would be joining them later. She wasn’t exactly sure if she wanted to get nostalgic with this college crowd or if she wanted to make an exit after saying her hellos. She already had another party on her roster that one of her university roommates had invited her to. Her ex’s current girlfriend was in London, spending the holidays with her family in a giant suite because her younger sister insisted on going to London for the Christmas holidays.
— “Anand! How you doing, man?” Vishal was at the door with a glass of whisky in his hand.
— “I’m good, dude. How about you?” The two men hugged before Anand turned sideways to introduce the gang. “This is Veena, my girlfriend. This is Seher, Avantika, Anuj and you know Kartik.”
— “Hello guys.” Vishal raised his glass of whisky to the gang as he turned to Veena for a hug, who grabbed his palm and shook it vigorously.
— “Nice to meet you. Anand has told me so much about you.” Veena became the girlfriend as Seher just walked towards the bar.
— “I hope he exaggerated a bit.” He tipped his head sideways. He did have spectacular hair, which had been set to perfection.
— “How are you doing?” Kartik stayed behind to shake Vishal’s hand. “Been a long time.”
Instead of shaking hands with Kartik, Vishal took a step back and spread his arms enough to represent his entire party, the golden-lit house, the view of Bandra from the fourteenth floor and his blazer which opened wider to show his white t-shirt.
— “Doing just about alright, man. Just about alright.” You are probably wondering if he has a french beard, you bet he does. “So you’re still with Coretek, Kartik?”
— “Yeah, still there. Heading my own team now though.” Four months ago, Kartik had been promoted to become the leader of his team. He now had his own quasi-cabin. There was a table set outside of it for an assistant but the company had replaced all assistants with Blackberries during the financial crisis of 2009.
— “Good for you, man, good for you.” Vishal then addressed the entire group. “Please make yourselves comfortable and grab a drink. We have great booze and slick bartenders. Ladies, feel free to ask them to juggle for you. Meanwhile, I am going to borrow Anand and Veena for a bit.” Following that up with a magnanimous chuckle, Vishal slipped between Anand and Veena as he whispered to Anand. “I am so glad you matched your boy-girl ratio, dude. This party is one dude away from turning into a sausage store in Frankfurt.”
— “You’re plying me with Glenlivet, dude. Feel free to go have a threesome with those two till the whisky runs out.” Anuj raised his glass to Vishal who did a polite turn-of-head-and-smile to acknowledge his over-the-top witty comment.
Anand produced a good party-laugh. Vishal’s hands stayed dropped over Anand and Veena’s shoulders. Veena made eyes at Seher (who had returned from the bar with a drink) and kicked Anuj in the shin with the tip of her shoes. Kartik, meanwhile, was looking around to see if he could spot Anjali’s glow anywhere across the large living room as he nudged Seher. “If you moved all the furniture, you could play French Cricket in here.”
The four of them stood there with their drinks in their hands, looking at all the shiny people. If Vishal had arranged for a fashion-conscious doorman as well, he wouldn’t have let Anuj and Kartik in.
— “Acchha, toh when are you rolling a joint?” Seher did not want her first party smoke to be a cigarette.
— “Let me at least enjoy my first drink, man. I am almost contemplating staying at this party all night if this is the kind of booze they’re serving.”
— “Boozewhore.”
— “If you’re stepping out to the balcony to roll a joint, then only two of you are allowed. One of you stays here with me till I spot Anjali. Or till Anand returns.”
— “Why are you being such a fascist all of a sudden, Katti?”
— “Heyy, I don’t want to be this lonely guy standing at the bar if Anjali and I end up looking at each other.”
— “That’s it. I can’t hang around this loser anymore.” Anuj slammed an open palm against Kartik’s back. “Dude, you’re much cooler when you’re hopeless.”
He raised his eyebrows at Avantika who shrugged and fished for a cigarette in her purse as she followed him. Anuj slipped two fingers into the change pocket of his jeans to pull out some maal. Avantika lit her grape-flavoured slim as they leaned against the balcony. Their elbows touched — black cotton against black lycra. Both of them threw a cross-eyed glance at their elbows.
— “So how are we doing this?”
— “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the man with the plan.” Avantika pulled her phone out and started texting Niyati.
³³ Anand’s parents had died in a car crash when he was eight. He was raised by his grandparents ever since. They were “cool people” as Kartik had once described them. Kartik was also the only person in the gang who had met them. After Anand had left for Bangalore to attend IIM, they had packed up their house in Bombay and had moved to Nashik. There will be more about them in some later detours and footnotes.
