Chapter 44: A Brief History of Seher and Niyati
For most parts, Seher and Niyati did not interfere with each other’s business. They would have never met if not for Veena. If they would have, it would have been on opposite sides of a bitchfight⁷³. This brief history covers the day they bonded and Niyati stopped calling Seher “pseu-pseu⁷⁴”.
The first few months after Veena introduced Niyati to Seher had been a crazy drama. Of course, neither Seher nor Niyati told anyone about it. They knew that if Veena found out, she’d either freak out completely or twist their ears and make them apologise to each other. (Kartik had figured it out but he decided to keep shut about it because clearly it was none of his business, and he was still getting used to being in a group with women.)
It all started with Seher who got too drunk one afternoon and sent Niyati a sleazeball’s address saying there was an audition happening at his house, which was in the thick of some far North-Western suburb. While Niyati escaped from the threshold of the house, she did not say anything to Seher. In fact, she did not bring it up at all. That confused Seher. A couple of weeks later, Seher was looking for a particular director’s number for a short interview. Niyati made her speak to a random actor friend of hers who pfaffed his heart out. Later that week, Seher almost lost her job when the director’s secretary called her boss. Thankfully, it was a top 5 piece (one where the celebrity shares their five favourite movies, holiday destinations, and such) and not a full interview. Both of them continued to behave in front of Veena, Anand and Kartik.
Before the following incident had occurred, the Seher-Niyati drama had crossed one big line — Niyati had gone all the way to the bar Seher was smoking outside of and pepper-sprayed her in a fit of rage. Mostly because Veena had not invited her to a brand event. Inside her head, Niyati blamed Seher for making that happen. (Not that Veena didn’t want to. She thought Niyati was busy with a shoot that day.) To Niyati’s disbelief, Seher just said one, “Ow!” and that was it. She blinked once at Niyati with her reddening eyes and then just walked back into the bar. Later that night, when Niyati reached her place, she saw Seher waiting for her right outside her door. “Pepper spray is for pussies,” Seher said before she tased Niyati. When Niyati woke up, she was inside her house, lying in her room with Seher waiting by her side holding a glass of water. The two talked it out. Niyati was glad Seher had nothing to do with the event invite. They decided to call a truce without stopping to hate each other.
A week after that, it was ladies night at a pub, located above a chaat place, somewhere on Linking Road. It had red and orange and purple walls. One of the walls was all mirror. Veena and Anand played fingersie, which is a lot like footsie, except your interlocked fingers are constantly stroking each other. Niyati talked about the afternoon auditions she had returned from when Seher walked in carrying a giant cake box. When the waiter stopped her, saying that no outside food was allowed, she just smiled and said, “But it’s my birthday!”
— “This is the third day you are coming in with a box of cake.” Veena’s fingers immediately unlocked from Anand’s.
— “This is the third time I’m telling you, eat the cake and don’t count the boxes.”
— “She’s been getting a cake every day for the last three days?” Anand opened the box to take a look at it. “Wow, this looks good.”
— “You guys…” Niyati was upset that her story had been interrupted. She opened the cake box and that shut her up. “Seriously? Gourmet cakes?” Seher just shrugged.
— “Is some chef pursuing you?” Anand planted a spoon into the cake.
— “Is some PR guy trying to make up for what a star said to you?”
— “I should’ve just taken these home to my psycho roommate.” Seher was clearly in no mood to explain. “At least, she would have just lied about not wanting to eat it and then stolen pieces from it at night.”
— “Then why won’t you tell us?”
— “Achha, fine!” Seher took a sip of her beer that had just arrived. “There’s this guy…”
— “Ha!” Anand gloated for guessing it right.
— “Shuddup, Arindam Chaudhuri. He’s not a chef, he’s a filmmaker.” She turned to Veena, “You know that party I went to on Saturday night?”
— “Yes.”
— “So there’s this guy who was there and we hit it off. Then we were flirting with each other way too much. But then we were all so smashed by the time we got to his house, that we barely stayed up through the kiss.”
— “You crashed in the middle of kissing him?”
— “No, no, we were both lying sideways and kissing slowly and then both of us passed out.” Seher scooped a little bit of the cake and put it in her mouth. “We even woke up ten minutes after that and decided to continue the next morning.”
— “And then?” Kartik had been considering losing his virginity those days, so every bedroom story he came by was important.
— “And then nothing. I woke up before him the next morning. I stripped him down to his boxers and got half naked myself.” The rest of them stared at Seher who was enjoying the attention. “And I got back under the sheet after that and waited for him to wake up. When he woke up, I asked him if we slept together. And why were we naked. And the last thing I remembered was us deciding not to do anything till morning, when we were conscious. You should’ve seen him! He was so confused! He was all like, Really? We did something?!”
— “You accused him of date-rape?” Veena stopped eating the cake. Niyati couldn’t stop laughing. Obviously, because Veena stopped, Anand stopped. Kartik continued eating it. He didn’t care. Plus the cake was too good.
— “Hey! I didn’t accuse anyone of anything. I just acted like my modesty had been outraged. And since Sunday morning, I’ve been getting cakes. So this is technically the fourth cake.”
— “Whatever. I am not eating rape cake.”
— “Can I say something?” Niyati had barely stopped laughing.
— “You really want to hear what she has to say?”
— “Since my best friend is busy faking date rape, why not?” Veena scoffed and turned to look at Niyati.
— “This cake is legit.”
— “What?” Both Veena and Seher’s jaws had dropped as they stared at Niyati. Anand wanted to take a bite but his hand was gripped hard by Veena. Kartik took another helping.
— “Simple. Ask yourself: WWSRKD?”
— “What Would Shah Rukh Khan Do?”
— “Yes! And Shah Rukh already did this, yo!” She raised a palm for Seher to high-five. “In DDLJ! Except it was made legit because then him and Kajol fell in love. But it still happened before they fell in love.”
— “Yeah, maybe that’s why I’m keeping him hanging. Maybe I want to see if the cake guy and I fall in love or not.” Seher actually high-fived Niyati on that. “All in favour of me, raise your hands.”
Veena lost the vote by one. Kartik found Niyati’s logic to be flawless. Seher would never show it but she took a liking to Niyati from that day on. On their next trip to the mall, she asked Veena if Niyati wanted to join them. Niyati did not know this then but that was the day she started compiling a list of these logical and situational rules (inside her head at first and then on her phone), which she would then call Actorography.
⁷³ Not to be confused with a catfight, a bitchfight is when two or more women fight with each other, not really fight-fight but you know compete but in rather aggressively passive ways. The fights could be over a guy, over aesthetic sensibilities, or just because they didn’t like being two swords in the same scabbard.
⁷⁴ Pseu-pseu: Short for pseudo-intellectual, also a homonym with susu (pidgin Hindi for pee)
