Chapter 32: The One After The Interval
Veena stared at Anand looking up at her with a smile that was nothing short of beatific. She looked around for a moment to see Seher, Avantika, Anuj and Kartik staring at her in disbelief and a bazillion other people staring at her with anticipation. For that everlasting moment, she felt like the hole in somebody’s kitchen sink, which had just been unplugged and all these people were vortexing into her. Her shoe stood there on the floor and her bare foot eased itself on the fabric of Anand’s pants.
If they had been in their living room and she was on their couch and he was on the floor, the foot-on-thigh would’ve meant sex at the count of five. But not when surrounded by an entire party. OneRepublic’s Good Life started playing (as Anand had planned it) and the crowd got impatient. The lighters that were providing an ambience of adventure and romance, equivalent to that of a ballad at a concert, started going off one after the other. All 32 of them. People started screaming at Anand and her.
— “DO IT!”
— “KISS HER!”
— “SAY YES!”
— “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
— “ORGY!”
The last one was said by someone who was so fucking smashed that he had pulled his own shirt off and was busy trying to figure out the buttons on the fly of his own jeans. He fell backwards and one of his friends tossed his shirt on his face.
The gang was obviously too scared to step in and disentangle the situation. They were afraid their first words would decide what side they were taking (just in case this was the moment when the epic Anand-Veena love story ended). While it was obvious that Seher and Niyati would be on Veena’s side and Kartik would be on Anand’s side, it was Anuj and Avantika’s (and consequently Niyati’s) positions that were particularly dicey. Since she was Niyati’s proxy, Avantika would obviously have to leave the party with Veena. And because he was a dude, Anuj would have to go with Anand and Kartik.
Veena wasn’t the only one who felt the void that she had caused in the space-time continuum of the party. People from other rooms had started trickling in, like they were all being gradually pulled towards it. The hostess of the party, Neeru Prajapati, was one of them. When Neeru walked in on the silence that had gone from being a pause to a pregnant pause to its next level (which would later be referred to by Seher as a pregnant menopause), she really had no clue what was up. She spotted Anuj standing in the innermost concentric circle around Anand and Veena and pushed her way to him. Quite a bit stoned and drunk that she was, she put her hand around Anuj, “Is he going to suck on her toes? Is this a dare?” Anuj cracked up.
Niyati had been watching this entire gig live from Kartik’s pocket (because Avantika did not have Skype on her phone). If you were looking at Kartik’s screen at the exact moment after Anuj cracked up, you wouldn’t see her face. (Although, if you had unmuted it from Kartik’s end, you might have heard her mutter things). Niyati had minimised Skype and was thumbpunching instructions to Avantika on WhatsApp.
On receiving the instructions, Avantika took a deep breath. “There is no other alternative,” Niyati’s last text had said. She grabbed Anuj by his collar and pulled him out as Neeru’s arm dropped to her side. Anuj’s drink went flying as Avantika kneed him in the groin. Anuj bent forward, his eyes popped wide open, his mouth made a perfect O and his chin rested on Avantika’s shoulder. Unlike the last time when he had time to move his body such that he could minimise the hurt Anjali’s ex’s punch had caused, this time the pain was for real. Avantika’s fingers were still locked onto his collar when she whispered into his ear, “Sorry, just doing my job.”
She then called him an asshole, a bastard of the worst order, a dickless twat, a pretentious fucktard, an insensitive chut and some more, and she tossed him at Anand and Veena. He dodged them but his hand hit Anand’s thigh and Veena’s foot dropped off it. That loss of contact woke Anand from the delirium he had lost himself in. Veena woke up from her spiral and turned to leave. Anand picked her shoe up from next to Anuj on the floor and followed Veena.
Avantika then sat on Anuj’s stomach (locking one of his hands under her) and suckerpunched him in the face. A couple of times before she started to slap him. Anuj tried to block her slaps with his one free hand but she caught it and used one of her feet to lock it down. She patiently continued to beat Anuj up as she waited for Seher and Kartik to see how her overpowering Anuj was a cue.
It was the fourth punch that slapped Seher (who said, “I told you she was psycho!”) and Kartik into the bit. Anuj, who was perplexed as fuck for the first three punches, saw the light with the fourth punch as well. He actively started participating in the bit right when Kartik and Seher jumped forward. The host Vinay had just walked in and was about to help Anuj but Seher stalled him with a look. Vinay joined Neeru, who had forgotten that she was one of the hosts of this party and was thoroughly entertained by the proceedings.
Kartik and Seher grabbed Avantika’s shoulders and tried to pull her off Anuj but they were unable to match her strength. As soon as Anuj’s hands were freed, he used them to block her kicking feet.
“I’m going to kill you!” She screamed at him in a pitch that had some of the spectators plug their ears with their fingers. Avantika’s foot pressed lightly against Anuj’s throat as she tightened the muscles of her leg to make it look like she was pushing to cave his gullet in. He started to pretend like he was choking. This went on for a good thirty seconds or so. His eyes rolled up and he pretended to pass out.
Avantika stabilised, got back onto her feet and kicked Anuj’s immobile body once more, staring at him with nothing but pure and unadulterated contempt. Seher tackled her out of the room, pushing her all the way into the living room and both of them started looking for Veena and Anand.
Kartik dropped to the floor to lightly slap Anuj’s face a couple of times as if to wake him up. “This shit is not funny anymore, Anuj! Get up!” He then looked around, making eye contact with as many people as he could. He couldn’t decide if he should go with Dilip Kumar from Mashaal or Sunny Deol from Ghayal when asking for help with the body. “Can somebody please help me move his body out?” He just decided to go with being himself because he wasn’t sure if Anuj was Waheeda Rehman or Raj Babbar in that bit. Most of the crowd just kept staring. There were a variety of responses that came from the inebriated spectators.
— “What happened?”
— “Is he alright?”
— “2013! WOOHOO!”
— “Is he dead?”
— “Did she kill him?”
— “Let the people vent their anger!”
David rolled his chequered sleeves and alongwith Ishani helped drag Anuj’s deadweight body out. Ishani kept asking Kartik, “Is he going to be okay? Is he breathing?” When they reached the living room, where everyone stared at them, Ishani screamed and dropped Anuj’s foot to the floor. “His toe just wriggled!”
Seher and Avantika had searched the entire house for Anand and Veena, who were nowhere to be found. Seher’s eyebrows had hit a permanent iceberg state of being. “That ass!” She said. “He could have just discussed this with me or Niyati or even Kartik! He might have just ruined everything.” They waited at the elevator, as one called Veena’s phone and the other called Anand’s.
“His toe just wriggled. Is somebody calling the ambulance?” Ishani and David asked as they helped Kartik drag Anuj’s body to the elevator.
Kartik suddenly remembered that Anand’s phone was still playing music in the dance room. He dropped Anuj to the floor and rushed to the dance room where people had started dancing once again. Half of them had exited the room to get a drink, a smoke, a breather from the tension that lingered even after the gang had made their exit. Kartik pulled Anand’s phone out and replaced it with the iPod that had been playing the music before Anand plugged his phone. Delhi Belly’s Bhaag DK Bose leaped out of the speakers. Anand’s phone rang. It was Avantika. Kartik picked it up and said, “I have Anand’s phone. Call Veena’s.” Avantika said, “Seher is on it.”
Seher held the elevator grill open as Avantika, Kartik and David dumped Anuj in the elevator. Once the elevator started moving, Seher tried calling Veena once again. This time, Veena picked up the call.
— “Seher.” Veena’s voice was at a degree of unexpected calm.
— “Yes, Veena?”
— “Don’t hyperventilate.”
— “Are you dumping Anand?”
— “No! I’m not going to dump Anand just because he suffered from a little premature ejaculation.”
— “Then why would you ask me not to hyperventilate?”
— “Because it all got a little tense in there.”
— “I am from Delhi, moron! This is any given Saturday. I was worried you were going to be losing it.”
— “I am fine. And before you ask, so is Anand. We are waiting by the car.”
— “We are coming, don’t just up and leave.”
— “Why would we do that?” Veena’s pitch was up there, as Seher heard a fancy fataka exploding in the background, which Veena could see from where she was standing (on the street).
— “Okay, okay, we’re on our way down.”
