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  Neel sits with an expression which is similar to the one with which he attended all the sessions yesterday—as if he has read, analyzed, and re-read all the works of the author. Time and again he keeps looking at the crowd to see if someone— preferably a girl with oversized shades and a perfect butt—is looking at him. Behind the author, on the stage is a big mirror in which Neel can see the reflection of most of the people attending the session. He suddenly spots the girl in one of the seats behind him. He turns his head to confirm if it’s her. It indeed is. Neel can’t make out whether she is looking at him or not because of her shades. Why is she wearing those shades inside the hall? He looks at her a few times but nothing encouraging happens. Neel is waiting for the session to get over so that he can go to her and pay her for the sandwich.

  The session gets over on time and as the crowd disperses, Neel quickly makes his way towards the seats at the back. The girl isn’t there anymore.

  Standing outside the Darbar Hall and trying to hunt the girl with the big shades amidst the crowd, Neel feels a tap on his shoulder from behind.

  ‘Neel Chatterjee?’ the girl says. Before Neel can answer, he notices she is wearing Ray-Ban Wayfarers, black breast-defining high-neck sweater, a royal blue hipster jeans, brown leather belt, and black high-heel boots that make her taller than him by an inch. She has a brown purse hanging from her right shoulder and a furry coat folded on the forearm of her left hand. There’s a Nikon D90 dangling from her left shoulder. Her hair is silky, with a red strand in front, and fall loosely on her shoulders. Her thick, slightly pouty lips are accentuated by the lip gloss. And on her fair and supple right cheek there is one tiny red dot of a pimple.

  ‘Yes,’ Neel blurts out. He is not sure what his expression should be like. But he is sure he is looking like a fool nevertheless.

  ‘Remember me?’ she says removing her Wayfarers.

  ‘Yes.’ It’s a lie. He doesn’t know why he says so. Maybe he didn’t want to sound too rude to her. Her eyes have as much lust in them as they have a longing. The lust is to conquer. The longing is there so that the one being conquered enjoys the process.

  ‘Really? Who am I Neel?’ she says with a tight smile.

  He gives her his most unsure smile and thinks hard. He isn’t sure if he ever knew her. Who the hell is she?

  ‘Actually…’ he begins but is cut short.

  ‘Oh it is okay, I won’t mind. I know you don’t remember me.’

  Relief!

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Neel says apologetically as if he should have known her. If she didn’t have a knockout figure and a forbidden-desire inspiring eyes, would he have stood there apologizing for not knowing her? Neel knows the answer. He remembers an adage Titiksha always tells him: men will be men.

  ‘I realized you didn’t recognize me yesterday.’

  ‘You bought me a chicken grilled sandwich. How did you know I wanted to have it?’

  ‘I know a lot many things about you. I’m your ex.’ Her face has a shine of amusement.

  Neel doesn’t know if she is joking or serious.

  ‘I’m kidding. We were in the same school. You used to come there for exams. I was pleasantly surprised to see you here yesterday.’ Her right cheek flexes just a bit into a smile and the next moment the tip of her tongue comes out of her mouth. He loves the way her tongue wets her dry lips. ‘ Chicken grilled sandwich is your childhood favourite, isn’t it?’ she asks.

  Is it? Neel isn’t sure. But if the beautiful girl says it is, then he doesn’t mind accepting it as the truth.

  ‘Right,’ he says and wonders how piercing her eyes are. As if they can fish into his subconscious and pull an alien desire out.

  ‘What brings you here? I didn’t know you had a penchant for literature,’ she says.

  Neel wants to say something smart that will floor the girl. But he can’t find the right words. He notices the girl looking at her mobile phone.

  ‘Come let’s go to Baithak Hall. I want to attend the next session there.’

  As she walks ahead, Neel follows her feeling amused about the fact she didn’t even care to ask him if he is interested in attending the session that she wants to go for. And it’s even funnier that he didn’t even mind her not asking.

  Before they take the narrow route to the Baithak Hall, Neel glances at the topic of the session on the giant programme schedule put up as a billboard. The topic is ‘Sex in contemporary English novels’.

  As they sit in separate bamboo chairs, she asks him, ‘How is life?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me what you are doing here though.’

  Neel hopes the answer he has conjured in his mind blows her over.

  ‘I want to be an author.’

  ‘An author? Wow, That’s great! Authors are the only liars women love to sleep with. One second…’

  He observes how swiftly she opens her bag, brings out a pen, and gives it to him.

  ‘Autograph please! What if you forget me again tomorrow?’ Again? How many times has he forgotten her already? Isn’t he meeting her for the first time?

  She pulls up her sleeves. He is supposed to sign on her forearm. The suddenness of it makes Neel uncomfortable. He doesn’t know if she is kidding or is serious. Should he really give her an autograph? An autograph! She is definitely kidding.

  ‘I insist,’ she smiles with such warmth that it convinces Neel that it’s not a joke. He takes the pen and scribbles his name in a complicated manner. He doesn’t even know if it will be his autograph once he becomes an author.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says kissing him on his cheek. It’s a normal, friendly, asexual kiss but Neel feels funny between his legs as she takes the pen back and keeps it inside her bag. He has always been like this. The slightest touch and he feels funny between his legs. In order to distract his mind, he asks the girl, ‘What do you do?’

  The girl leans closer to his ears and says, ‘Later.’

  Neel likes the way her breath tickles his ears. The funny feeling between his legs becomes funnier. He likes the way she… By the way what’s her name? he wonders. She may remember his name but the truth is Neel remembers nothing about her. Should he ask her directly? He takes out his mobile phone and asks her, ‘What’s your number?’ The girl looks at him as if he has interrupted her attention. She takes his phone, types her number herself, and gives it back to him. He chooses the ‘save as contacts’ option and inquires, ‘How do you spell your name. I mean I remember the name but the spelling…’

  For few seconds, she keeps looking at Neel. He doesn’t know what to infer from the look.

  ‘Tell me Neel,’ she says softly, ‘What if we didn’t have any of our senses? What if we couldn’t see, feel, taste, smell, or hear anything? Would we still fall in love with the person we are in love with otherwise? Don’t you think Neel, love is only a trick of the senses?’

  What was that? Neel seems baffled. It is too heavy for him to comprehend. He only asked the spelling of her name, damn it!

  She leans towards him again and speaks softly into his ears, pronouncing each alphabet of her name distinctly as he types it in his mobile phone. The way her breath caresses his ears makes him hear a thunder within him each time.

  Neel is taking a shower in his hotel room’s bathroom. He has kept the geyser on for a long time by mistake, as a result of which the vapours have invaded the entire bathroom, blurring every glass. Neel writes her name on one of them with his fingertips.

  Nivrita

  He keeps staring at the name all through his shower. The other day he had followed Nivrita to all the events she wanted to attend. There is a primitive magnetism in her which he finds undeniably attractive. Passion is a devil. It’s there in all of us. It is hungry, has canines, and is ferocious to the core. Most importantly it is blind too. It doesn’t have limitations, doesn’t associate itself with any stigma. More often than not it remains chained in all of us until you come across someone who unchains it for you, within you, and you sudde
nly realize you are exactly all that you always loathed in others. Nivrita has been able to unchain that passion in Neel in one single meeting.

  They didn’t talk much after the small talk in Baithak Hall the previous day. Sometimes she seemed all open and chirpy but the moment he wanted to ask anything personal, she turned reticent. Right before they bid each other goodbye, she asked him, ‘How about roaming around Jaipur tomorrow?’

  Neel looks at two outfits alternately—one is a light green kurta which Titiksha likes a lot and the other one is a T-shirt. He remembers a casual remark from Titiksha: ‘I think you look better in kurta’. He decides to go for the T-shirt.

  He has been wearing Titiksha’s choice for a long time now so he thinks of giving Nivrita’s suggestion a chance. Nivrita had gifted him a cologne—Bogart Pour Homme—as a parting gift for the day saying: this smell turns me on. And it indeed had a better smell than the perfume he used.

  Was Nivrita taking him away from Titiksha? Neel shuns the stupid thought since he knows Titiksha from half a decade now and Nivrita, only a few hours. And yet when he looks into the mirror, his reflection seems more like a personification of Nivrita’s desire than Titiksha’s wish. Does he mind it? Neel doesn’t know yet. He is now ready to roam the city of Jaipur with his ‘supposed’ ex, about whom he remembers nothing. He doesn’t remember anyone from his school anyway.

  Last night was an extraordinary night for him. He had done something for the first time. He had messaged Titiksha that he was missing her when the reality is he is at peace in her absence. The realization surprised him. He loves Titiksha and yet is happy about the momentary freedom. Why was he finding it hard to tell Titiksha about this alleged school friend of his? Maybe if he did, Titiksha would be in Jaipur first thing in the morning, curbing his freedom. But what is this freedom about? Why is it making him feel elated? It’s not that Titiksha’s presence stifles him, so why does her absence feel like a relief? Is he being unfaithful to her? Should he not go out with Nivrita and instead do what he is here for: attend the literary festival, feel inspired, and return home to start writing his debut novel?

  His mobile phone buzzes. It’s a message from Nivrita: I’m here. When are you coming downstairs?

  In the momentary silence that follows, Neel locks his decision.

  He types: In a minute, and presses on the send option.

  As they come out of the hotel premises, Neel sees Lappan waiting with his Indica by the road. He waves at him. Neel wants to take Lappan since there would be sufficient space between Nivrita and him in a car. In certain ways, he is scared of her. No, he corrects himself, he is scared of his reaction towards Nivrita which may be favourable for her but not for him or his relationship with Titiksha.

  ‘But from a car, it’s difficult to click photographs. I want to click the city as it prepares to take on the day,’ Nivrita says almost pulling Neel away from Lappan. She is wearing the same boots she was wearing a day back along with black denims and a red poncho over a white shirt.

  ‘I’ll call you if need be,’ Neel tells Lappan.

  ‘Okay sir sahib.’

  Lappan drives away with an I-know-you-want-to-be-alone-with-this-chick smirk. Neel only hopes he doesn’t mention it to Titiksha on the phone if he talks to her anytime. His fear makes him call out to Lappan.

  The car reverses till it reaches him.

  ‘Keep this,’ Neel says stuffing a hundred rupee note in his shirt pocket.

  Lappan gives him a now-I-exactly-know-why-you-want-to-be-alone-with-this-chick smirk and drives off.

  Neel and Nivrita take a cycle-rickshaw. It’s almost crawling on the busy MG Road. Nivrita is continuously clicking pictures with her DSLR while Neel is trying hard not to notice that they are sitting so close that their legs are touching. To divert his mind, he keeps asking her questions which she replies to while moving around her eyes furiously and clicking anything that interests her.

  ‘Are you married?’ he asks.

  ‘Nope!’ She doesn’t look at him while answering.

  ‘Committed?’

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Why is what?’ She glances at him.

  ‘How come you are single?’

  ‘Why, does that make me an outlaw?’

  ‘No, I mean a girl like you….’

  Neel cuts short his sentence as Nivrita turns to look at him. It makes him feel as if he shouldn’t have said what he did. She clicks a close-up of his.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she says examining the pictures in her camera.

  Now he will have to tell her what he thinks of her: that she has an amazing figure, that he would have doted on her had he not been committed, and that he had mentally stripped her the first instant he saw her, but a silent sigh later, he answers, ‘You are beautiful.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she beams. ‘I believe I can only be loyal to one thing: either my life or a relationship—not both. I have chosen to be loyal to my life.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Love and life are two parallel tracks, Neel. I believe I can put myself only on one track at a time. I made the mistake once of expecting my life to be better because I was in love. Not anymore.’

  In the silence that follows, Nivrita continues to click pictures. It amazes Neel how she can be aloof and involved both at one go. Being in a committed relationship with Titiksha, is he allowed to be amazed by someone to this extent? In this manner?

  The cycle-rickshaw climbs a steep speed breaker. Both Nivrita and Neel suffer a sudden jolt. She grasps his hand while he grabs her thighs for support. By the time the cycle-rickshaw climbs down the speed breaker, she is still holding onto his hand while he removes his hand from her thighs almost instantly. He looks at her expecting a reaction but there’s none.

  Few silent minutes pass by. Neel is getting bored. If not for Nivrita, he would not have visited any place in Jaipur. New places bore him. Rather, they make him feel uncomfortable. They somehow make him want to go back home, to his comfort zone, where he lives with Titiksha. Since the time they shifted together, Titiksha has become a symbol of the domesticity he finds himself chained to at all times and whose non-negotiable pull he feels every time he moves out of that comfort zone. Only Neel knows how he has dared to fly from Kolkata to Jaipur. And every dare has a prize, Neel wonders, looking at Nivrita as she climbs down the cycle-rickshaw. They are in Hawa Mahal now.

  As Nivrita moves about inside the Hawa Mahal to capture a nice frame, she asks him, ‘Do you know, Hawa Mahal was made so that the women could see what was going on in the city? But the windows, or Jharokhas as they were called, were made so small that nobody from outside could see them. Don’t you think that made them voyeurs?’

  Neel doesn’t know what to answer and more importantly doesn’t know how it matters what he thinks.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ When in doubt, Neel always agrees.

  ‘Are you a voyeur, Neel?’

  A tricky question for sure. He has no clue what to say now. Should he agree he is a voyeur? Is he one? How will it harm him anyway if he lies?

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  He notices her pause. She gives him an appreciating smile which could also be read as a don’t-kid-me smile, and then gets back to clicking pictures.

  ‘Have you ever wondered that the moments we are living now with each other may well be the moments we desperately wished to live in some other life but somehow couldn’t?’

  Neel feels it’s an interesting thought. Is it true? Can be. Who knows what’s on the other side of life.

  ‘Not really,’ he says.

  Next, they go to Amer Fort. With each passing moment words become lesser and lesser between them, as if Nivrita is slowly forgetting about his presence. After roaming around Amer Fort, Neel calls Lappan to come and fetch them.

  In the car, every time Nivrita comes and sits dangerously close to him. He compulsively glances in the mirror atop the driver only to realize Lappan has his you-owe-me-an
other-hundred-rupees-now smirk on his face. It has appeared three times now. Neel mentally calculates that he owes Lappan three hundred rupees.

  Finally he conjures up something to ask her.

  ‘Weird, I haven’t yet asked you, but what you do?’

  ‘I make my life interesting.’ Neel hears her say, ‘Every now and then I ask myself what my goal is and what’s the most interesting of roads that will not take me to it. That’s what I do. I set goals and choose roads not to reach it.’ She smiles, examining the pictures she has been clicking in her camera. At first Neel thinks it’s her sense of humour at work and he is even on the verge of laughing at something he didn’t quite get, but then good sense prevails, and he chooses not to prod.

  ‘Stop here please,’ she tells Lappan who by now has realized the lady is calling the shots.

  ‘Let’s ride a camel.’

  This has to be a joke now, Neel tells himself.

  The camel ride turns out to be the worst experience of Neel’s life. He doesn’t want to even think about it. They sit by a bench overseeing the Jal Mahal and have some vanilla ice cream. To distract himself from the horrible camel ride, Neel keeps noticing how her tongue comes out to lick the melting ice cream and reverts back to the mouth with each lick.

  ‘What I meant in the car was what do you do for a living?’ Neel says.

  ‘I’m the senior commissioning editor at Word Tree Publishing, India,’ she says in a matter-of-fact manner.

  Word Tree Publishing? Did he hear her right? He wants her to repeat because for some inscrutable reason he knows it is good news for him. Instead he hears her say something better.

  ‘What’s the premise of the story you have in mind for your debut novel?’

  None! That is the truth and that’s what he says, ‘Nothing.’

  She looks at him inquisitively and says, ‘Great!’

  Great? An aspiring author with no story idea. What’s so great about it? Neel is confused.

  ‘I have a story. But I’ll share it with you if you promise me to make it your debut novel.’