Made for each other

Present day!

Sahil lounged on the couch outside the living room and from the little parting in the drapes, he looked on at his friends, Danny and Manjari. Danny was working at Manjari’s eyelashes—lining them with kaajal. He loved her eyes and insisted that she wear kaajal all the time so that her eyes looked round, big and beautiful like—as he himself said—‘Bong babes’. ‘Leave it, will you! It’s done, goddamit!’ Sahil heard Manjari bawl at Danny. Their familiarity with each other suggested that they had once been through a period of great physical intimacy and were now just close friends. Finally, when they were done, they came out of the living room and looked at Sahil for his stamp of approval. ‘Perfect! You look gorgeous, darling,’ Sahil said, looking at Manjari. Manjari grinned from ear to ear, picked her purse, bid them both goodbye and left the apartment.

‘You know when you guys came out of the room and stood beside each other, both of you smiling at me like that, it brought on some memories, dude.’ Sahil said, breaking the icy silence between the two friends, when Manjari was gone on her blind date—her third in two weeks—and they were alone in the apartment.
‘Don’t even mention,’ Danny retorted with a wave of his hand as his shoulders dipped and he sank in the couch.
‘So what’s up with this blind-date thingy, anyway?’ Sahil wanted to get Danny to talk this evening.
‘I really don’t know. My best guess would be that some girl friend of hers bullshitted her into this.’
‘And you didn’t mind or say anything?’
‘You really think I have some power over her even now, you jackass?’
‘Whatever happened to those love promises then?!’
‘Well, they still stand, of course. We still live together you see, although in separate rooms.’ Danny spoke with a slight smile that never failed to charm his friend, only this time, it broke Sahil’s heart.
Nausea rode on the thick wisps of cigarette-smoke that hung in the air, but the two friends did little to ward it off. They had smoked killing poisons together innumerable number of times before too. Any poison was all but too familiar.
‘I cannot see how she does not see…’ Sahil spoke again.
‘She does see; we have always been conscious of each other’s feelings, in fact, our minds are full of each other’s minds, and stuffed to the brim. But that is beside the point. The point is that we have ceased to care now. We have ceased to love…’
‘But you do love her even now, don’t you?’
‘I never ask myself that. I never will.’
‘And does that not prove that you care for what she thinks and care little for what you think?’
‘Yeah, sounds rather poetic that if I do love her, I won’t ask myself if I do. And more importantly never ask her.’
‘Well, why the heck did you complicate things like this? Why did you not just break up?’

Danny took a long drag at the cigarette and his words came out with the smoke when he said, ‘Well, there was this sickeningly soft bed of friendship to fall back onto when we fell out of love.’

‘So?’ Manjari said, not quite sure where the conversation was headed with her ‘blind-date’, Suresh, who worked with Dell, Bangalore.
‘So, shall we start with the food first? Let us try the prawns. I hear they are divine down here,’ the man said.
‘Of course,’ she smiled, turning all her charms at him, knowing fully that they would work. They never failed with Danny and the man in front of her wasn’t half his worth.
‘So how long have you been in Bangalore?’ Manjari said, sipping the Pepsi.
‘Two years. Was in Madras before for quite sometime. I have been divorced, by the way.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’
‘That is OK. I thought it appropriate to mention it earlier on itself.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘So, you have been in some relationship too?’
‘Yeah, sort of…’ Manjari smiled curtly.
‘And its status now?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You are still in touch with him?’ he said, finally bringing on the question that Manjari had warded off until then.
‘Yeah, sort of…’
‘And in what way?’
‘Well, we kind of share the same apartment. Have to pay the bills together you see.’ Manjari did not care to hide her mischievous smile.
‘Oh, I see. So you mean…’
‘No,’—she broke in between—‘We do not mean anything to each other. It is just that we have not been able to find any other apartment until now, though we are looking. There are a lot of apartments under construction in Greater Bangalore I hear…’
‘You live with him and you come on a date with another man. What kind of people are you?’ Suresh retorted with a slight sneer.
Manjari was in no mood to explain what kind of people they were—she and Danny. She picked her purse and left sooner than any word could be exchanged.

‘Golden Enclave, Airport Road,’ she said to the rickshaw wallah as the man turned the metre and sped off the rickshaw through the rain-washed streets. Manjari squinted at the rains and was suddenly reminded of the first time when she and Danny had met. It had been the same setting: It was the same restaurant and it had been raining. She had not had her raincoat and so he had given her his. And one chance meeting had led to another and they had kept on meeting until they fell in love at the end of two weeks. It had been ethereal. No other relationship that she had been in had had more staying power than the one she had with Danny. How they had loved, how they were made for each other, how they had promised an eternity of love to one other… And today when some jerk had sneered at them; somewhere, somehow, and though she understood little why, her pride was hurt…

‘What kind of people are you?’

She knew that none besides them would understand what kind of people they were. How they had once loved and how they had poisoned it with their own private demons. And so the same love now spread like diseased water between the shores of their beings, overwhelming their lives; it tore them apart, and they sought solace in different places, in meeting different people, and keeping busy with other things and never asking their own selves, leave alone each other, certain questions.

The rain fell in torrents, and some of it seeped through the cloth-roof of the rickshaw and came onto her. It gave her a strong sense of dearth of privacy and security. She wanted to get back home as soon as possible. She saw a dog shivering, wet with the rain and she wanted to cry.

The rickshaw made its way through the slow-moving Bangalore traffic and it was well past mid-night when Manjari arrived in the apartment. By then, Sahil had left.
‘Make me some vodka, will you?’ Manjari said resting her body on the couch.
‘Sure,’ Danny replied to her. She looked sick after her day. He thought that the drink would give her some strength. He brought her the vodka and she reached with her hand in the dark for it; the glass touched the back of her hand and fell to the ground, shattering into pieces. Danny bent and reached for the broken pieces of glass. And as Manjari looked on at those broken pieces reflecting the dim light of the room, an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu gripped her. Suddenly, she reached for those broken pieces and started putting them together like a madwoman. Danny got out of her way and looked on at her as her hands worked feverishly with the broken glass until a piece of glass cut through her wrist. And had Danny not held her hands, she would have continued to fiddle with the pieces. She struggled with his hold for some time, finally giving in; she broke down and rested her head on his chest. For some reason he did not wipe off her tears, he only took her in his arms and stroked her hair and back; she wept incessantly. Something within Danny’s chest stiffened taking the shape of solid rock and she anchored herself to it as firmly as she could, but, she could not stop crying. She was inconsolable. She looked at the broken pieces of glass; they looked like disease that plagued her existence.

When she had cried her heart out, she lifted her head and looked into Danny’s eyes. She saw a tiny flame flicker in his eyes; he lifted her in his arms and took her to bed. In bed together, Manjari parted her lips and raised her eyes to him to whisper some sweet-nothings but Danny raised his finger and shut her. She was never good with words. She always tripped over them, breaking to small shreds the delicate string of love. He did not know if after that night they would still love each other, but, unlike the previous times, he was determined to keep them from hating each other.

Manjari’s eyes danced when she brought him coffee the next morning and her cheeks glowed as if reflecting the early morning light. They were lovers all over again after the previous night. They did not know till how long, though. They sipped the coffee together resting their heads against each other and looked on at the early morning light; as if making space for themselves inside of each other; at the same time pushing some evil thought down in some dark chamber of their collective consciousness, where it would rest for sometime.

Mr.H