Day 5 of Paradise: I raced back to my cupboard as soon as I reached home from dropping The Wife off at the airport. There behind the ‘well past the best-by date liqueur chocolates’ and the dog eared Hustler magazines was what I was looking for. The Little Black Book. The collective distilled wisdom of my years. In neat, minute, precise handwriting were the hundreds, nay, thousands of numbers of Women from My Past. Like whiskies ageing in oaken casks waiting for their moment of release and sublimation, did these numbers wait for their moment to shine. Like right now. Without wasting a moment I dialled the first number.Yeh number maujood nahi hai. As was the second and third. You must remember that the collection spanned the many decades of my existence, from pre-puberty to mid life, and included numbers with five, six, even seven digits. The fourth was picked up by a man his voice slurred in sleep and irritation. I quickly disconnected and checked the time. It was two in the morning. Ooops my bad. The next day, several slammed phones and recriminatory “You could at least have said good bye before you left me’ conversations later, I managed to fix up my first date. I met her in the lobby of St. Andrew’s Auditorium last evening and commented how lovely she looked after all these years and how the grey in her hair matched her silver choker. Platinum, she corrected me. Oh well, these South Bombay types are rich I am told. A large shrill voice ricocheted off my cranium. ‘Hey Bachelor Boy! The mouse seems to be at play when the cat is away.’ The Voice said brightly, looking disapprovingly up and down my date with tight compressed lips. It was my neighbour from the apartment block. ‘Well hello Mrs. X, you are looking just as fat as when I last met you.’ ‘And insist on a discount from your gym’ I shouted at her retreating, sobbing back. Just before I left for my date, I had bribed The Offspring. ‘Not one call, you hear me?’ I hissed. ‘Here take the keys to my car, the safe and the liquor cabinet, and you! stop picking your nose when I talk to you, your gaming console is hidden behind the Atta dabba I told The Younger One. Read my lips. Not. One. Call.’ The play based on Charulata and Ghaire Bhaire was magnificent, The Bengali women in the row behind me tittered at every joke and the ‘chompo’ flowers in their hair shed petals onto me every time they burst out laughing. Their husbands sat stiffly besides them clutching onto their wives purses dreaming of Sunday morning fish markets and billowing fields of mustaaaard. Just after the lights dimmed we threaded our way from our cheap tickets to the largely empty more expensive one up front. Jugaad, honey, I explained to my embarrassed date. We are like this only. In the intermission, as I hand fed my date with chutney sandwiches, which I had fought a four deep crowd to get to, I spotted Mrs. X speaking virulently into her phone, pointing at my direction. Oh well, it pays to be famous and a little notoriety never hurt anyone. I walked my date to a quaint restaurant set deep in the Bandra Village. After the last incident when she had stomped off from the pavement stall where I had ordered Shezuan Noodles with Paneer Manchurian, I was taking no chances. The quaint restaurant was fashionably decrepit, the walls artificially aged and the food overpriced. The air was abuzz with conversations about art exhibitions and parties at Ibiza, and over air kisses being blown over my head, I gazed deep into her eyes. ‘I paid for the show tickets, I hope you are paying for dinner.’ I asked her. Later, on the way out, I explained to the manager that my friend had suddenly taken violently ill, which explained her abrupt departure. I walked the lonely, cobbled streets, emptied of their usual crowds, past corpses of rodents laid low by the pesticides in the garbage they foraged. Kamlesh the disabled beggar on his makeshift trolley, raised his arm in hope of a donation, but I ignored him through tear sodden eyes. At home, I scrunched over discarded packets of Lays and Pizza cartons and picked up The Younger One asleep at the gaming console. As i kept the milk bottle at the front door, I wondered what I had done wrong. Nothing, I consoled myself. Women! they can be so unpredictable.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 04:32:00 +0000
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