No, the noise wasn't coming from the top floor as Mukti had suspected. She leaned against the stair case, at the landing between the top floor and the 9th floor, to check the three apartments besides hers and sure as hell, all the nuisance was happening right next door to her.
This particular apartment had been vacant for quite a while, after the middle aged couple who owned it shifted permanently to Australia. 'Must be new tenants' she thought, because in mumbai, once you manage to buy a property, you don't sell it, unless and until, you have to sell it to buy something bigger or grander.
Mukti rang the bell. Well, rang would be too mild a word to describe how she literally banged her arm against the bell, as if doing so would somehow make the bell buzz louder. With each passing second, that the inhabitant was taking to open the door, the temperature of her blood was soaring. How dare someone play such loud junk at almost midnight and how come no one else objected.
Bang..bang..bang.. She rang it thrice, before she finally heard the door lock clink from inside.
The door flung open and someone said "Hello". That was it. That was just it.
Was mukti by any chance, hallucinating? She didn't particularly remember taking weeds. God help her, but she wasn't even drunk. Then how come that nightmare from office was standing infront of her, in another cleavage revealing see through shirt?
Instinctively she blinked her eyes twice.
The cheapo on the other end, was surprised too, for his mouth was drawn into a big 'O'. However, he recovered his composure rather quickly. "yeh main koi haseen khwab dekh raha hun ya haqueeqat mein aap mere rubaru hain?"
Mukti wanted to flex her arm and swing it in the air, before landing it on his cheek with enough zing to leave a gaping dent. She couldn't make out what was bugging her the most - the Honey Singh song blaring away from his apartment, his totally out of place Urdu, his unpurterbed demeanor, including that fucking see through shirt or the fact that he was here, in the apartment next to hers. And suddenly she started panicking..
"What the hell are you doing here?"
" Yun to aapke yahan aane se is tanha raat mein char chand lag gaye hain par pareshaan to main yeh sochkar hun ki khuda itna hamdil kab se ho gaya? dua dil se zubaan tak aayi bhi na thi aur usne farishte ki tarah aapko bhej diya? "
It would have taken her a good 10 minutes to decipher his statement. So she didn't even try. "Can you please cut the crap and tell me in a language I understand, what the hell you are doing here and who gave you the permission to play a song so loudly at this hour of the night?"
"This is my new home. I just moved in..."
"No way, you can't be serious.. This is not happening. I am not going to be neighbours with cheapos like you."
Ok, so she was his neighbour. What a stroke of luck! It would be fun to hang around her, and the more she barked down at him, rolling her eyes to full effect, the cuter he found her. He had seen enough life and dealt with enough people to understand, those who tend to hide behind a wall of anger are more often than not, softies inside. But of course, he didn't want her to know that he could see right through her aggression. Not so soon at least.
"With due respect to your thoughts mam, Mumbai doesn't belong to either you or your dad. Neither do I think you own this apartment. And because I have paid my rent and a hefty security deposit, I believe I have earned my way here. So my humble advise to you would be, get used to seeing this eye-candy around."
"Eye candy my foot" Mukti stomped her foot and turned around to leave. His witty and sarcastically polite answer had left a burning hole in her stomach. She had so not seen this coming.
"Hey... anger makes you look even more beautiful"
Mukti didn't turn to see his face again, even as she heard him utter the parting words. Bollywood is no better than drugs, she thought. An entire generation has grown up cheesy under the influence of those trademark dialogues.
**********
Inside, Ranbir was sitting alone on the sofa, the rhythmic ticking of the clock adding a strange sense of comfort to his melancholy. Even though he had started off with wondering why Navya had been so unusually rude, his thoughts had soon wandered off to the storm brewing inside him. He had been too busy in the past few days to pay attention to his shifting emotions. But they were changing, weren't they? Like he was changing...as a clear blue sky glimmering with golden sunshine slowly turns grey with clouds floating in from nowhere. That's how he felt, like a dark grey cloud, moments before it burst open and poured down.
He had always stayed clear of the matters of heart. Growing up under a strict father in a military environment away from his mother and brother, changing bases every few months, he had seldom had stray encounters with emotions. Even the schools he had been to, were mostly for boys. By the time he reached college, he realized, he had missed out on those hormonal trips that every adolescent grows through. He felt so conscious and awkward walking up to a girl and starting a conversation, that after a few initial attempts, he just gave up. Women to him meant this complicated circuit of intersecting, overlapping wires, for he had never been exposed to their gentle caring side. He had never had his mother nursing him, or feeding him or waiting for him after school. He had only known a father who meant well but was a man of scanty emotions, who thought it was beyond a man's self worth to be vulnerable. He was taught to FIX his own wounds, laugh off his troubles and the heart was supposed to be just an organ pumping blood into the body, an organ prone to arterial blockages not heartbreak or ache or any such frivolity.
Women didn't attract him, especially the ones who looked like a million bucks and had an army of men queue up after them. But Navya touched him, in some strange way. She affected him enough to make him sad at times. Why...he thought over and over again..why?
"Tum upar nah gaye?" She broke his chain of thoughts.
"Nahi wo.." He looked at her. She was in her pajamas and a loose fitting shirt, hair tied up in a bun, and her eyes looked dark, with the kajal smudged in. Her eyes were fixed to the ground, her usual chirpiness missing.
"baki log kahan hain? Upar to thand hogi..." her voice was meek, apologetic.
"Are you kidding me? Thand at 30 degrees? Wo chill kar rahe honge aram se. why did you come out? Neend tut gayi kya?"
"Nai.."
"Then?"
"I didn't sleep at all.." she said hesitatingly.
"Want a cup of coffee?" he asked with the kind of concern that she couldn't refuse.
He stepped into the kitchen while she trailed behind. "Instant coffee kahan hai?"
"Fridge mein, top shelf....shakkar samne hi hai...aur dudh bhi..."
"I know ki dudh fridge mein hi hota hai..." Ranbir replied with a smile. Any other day and she wouldn't have let him step in and make a mess of her spotless kitchen that too for a cup of coffee that she was never fond of. Why just her place, even at his, every single time she visited, she spent half her time uncluttering and cleaning and then cooking something yummy for him. And he like a typical haggard, would look forward to her visits just so he could get something worth licking his fingers. Only problem: she was a veg and he survived on meat.
Ranbir poured a cup of milk in the pan and kept on stirring it as it slowly warmed up. He was hoping she would speak up. He could have straightaway asked her to, but decided to give her some time instead.
For the next five minutes, they both stayed mum as he very meticulously put together that one cup of coffee with extra sugar and cream on top and she silently observed him. It was only when he nudged the cup towards her that Navya was brought back to reality. "Yeh sabkuch itna unfair kyun hai duniya mein?"
"Like what?"
"Chiraag ki maa bachpan mein hi guzar gayi thi."
Ranbir looked up at her, surprised.
"Uske dad ne for shaadi karli, usi ki mausi se aur isliye use boarding mein dal diya taki uski dekhbhal na karni pare. Unke bhi do bacche hai jo unhi ke sath rehte hain, bas ek chiraag hostel mein pare pare sarta hai."
"Oh!" That was all he could mutter. Who would have guessed looking at that naughty little bundle of sunshine that he came from a place so dark. Yet, in just half a night, navya had drawn out all his hidden secrets.
"Aisa kyun hota hai ranbir, ki jise jo chahiye who kabhi nahi milta. Kyun mujhe apna baccha kisi ko dena para aur jiske paas itna pyaara sa baccha hai, wo use do waqt ka khana na dena pare, uski homework na karwani pare, is darr se use hostel chor aayi? Kyun mata rani sahi logon ko sahi cheezen nahi deti jiski wo kadar kar sakein? Kyun hamesha acche logon ke sath bura aur bure logon ke saath accha hota hai?"
Ranbir wished, he had an answer to that, but he didn't. Yes, this world is an assortment of wrong connections, of short circuits, of accidents and missed opportunities. People who are meant to grow together, are stripped apart for life, and then one of them is killed, just like that. People who should die, live, people who have so much to give, so many to love, die..without a reason, without an explanation, without a chance to be told that they are loved and missed..they just leave. Life is unfair, but sometimes accidents are not merely accidents. God too at times mends up his own shit. Had he not bumped into these two in that delhi hotel, his life would have been a different story today. Yet he was here, making coffee for a nut case girl who fought with him all day, hoping to bring a smile on her face.
*********
Manik was climbing up the stairs when he heard panicked footsteps coming down towards him. "O hello mam, where to? Where are you rushing?" He charged the moment he saw Nandini's face, all flustered, her hair a mess.
"Tum kahan chale gaye the?" She was panting.
Manik raised the two cups of tea he was carrying in both his hands.
"Thank God!" she sighed and slumped on the stairs, exhausted.
"What's the matter Nandini? Why are you hyperventilating? Ok stay here. I will go up, put the cups, come back and take you...ok stay right here."
Manik rushed up, and then hurried back to the 3rd floor where Nandini was still sitting on the stairs. Thankfully her breath had eased out and even though her forehead was still covered in beads of perspiration, the fright was gone from her face.
"Give me your hand" He urged.
"No you are not...Manik. You can't carry me for 3 floors."
"I bloody can." he didn't wait for her to give in. He bent down and picked her up in his steady arms and began to climb back to their 6th floor flat. She couldn't take her eyes off her as she lay her head on his shoulders. She could feel his muscles flex, his brows twitch, she could also feel his heartbeats go up from the laborious exertion, no matter how smoothly he denied.
"Wo lift kam nahi.."
"I know" he smirked, as he put her down finally. "Perks of living in a shitty place. But what the hell were you doing, running down like you were missing a flight or something. For heavens sake Nandini, don't give me these kinda thrills, I have been only married for a day... kuch hojata to.."
"I was scared."
"Of?"
"I thought you..you...I mean I didn't see you and I panicked.."
"And you thought I have left?"
She bit her lips, embarrassed.
"Itna commonsense kahan rakhti ho nandini? Your Knees are already overflowing. Kahan I was thinking, I will serve a steaming cup of tea to my sexy wife, rolled up in the sheets, you spoilt the whole plan."
"Right" She said, slightly miffed and got up.
"What right?" He followed her to the bathroom, where she pulled out her brush and the tube of paste from one of the small drawers under the basin and quickly put it inside her mouth.
"Yaahi dat I luk a mess and you dot I'd be waiting all zexy" she blabbered while furiously pushing the brush up and down her teeth.
He couldn't help but laugh at the cute scene infront of him. There she was, his newly married bride, with her face still made up, her hands still adorned in mehendi and choora but her hair a hornet's nest, while she put on his oversized shirt, a pair of mickey mouse pajamas ,a pair of lemon yellow chappals and a toothbrush to top it all. If he had any doubts that life would change after marriage, this was the evidence that it wouldn't. From the 1st day when he had dropped her home after she had got accidentally drunk to today, little had changed. Only now, he would witness it everyday, morning and night and it would make his day every single time.
But why was she panicking and more importantly why was she miffed? He waited for her to get done.
Nandini tried to move past him but Manik blocked the door with one hand and then like a kid, he lifted her and placed her on the platform next to the basin.
"Now tell me, why were you scared?"
"I don't know" she said, turning her face away from him.
"Then who knows?"
"I don't know!!"
"Ok who do I love?"
"I donno"
"Who does Nandini love?"
"You" It just slipped from her mouth. This time she couldn't say "I donno". That's the cue he needed. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her. "Main kanhi nahi ja raha nandini, stop getting scared. I am yours and now to officially... I know ki I have left you a couple of times, knowingly, unknowingly, but that's not happening again Cotton..you get that? That's never gonna happen again."
"Are you going to pick me up, everytime you see me run short of breath?"
"yes..every single time" he said with a conviction that didn't let it remain just a casual joke. He meant it.
"If its 30 floors instead of 3?"
"Even then... we will take breaks but u r coming with me, wherever I go...I am not going anywhere in life without you, do you get that stupid girl?"
"Hmm" she nodded.
"Ok now tell me why are you upset?"
Again she looked away, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Nandini..."
"Because I look like a joker and you are as usual a hunk. And I just realized that this is going to be the story of my life hence forth. I won't get time to sort myself up and I would pretty much be a mess ball all the time." she blurted out in a single breath.
"True marriage has changed a lot of things..and the most obvious change is, you have grown dumber overnight."
"You know the difference between dating and marriage? Dating is like the food you get at the restaurants, and marriage is like the food you cook at home. You cant always eat outside, ultimately it's the comfort food that one falls for. And besides, you can spice up your kitchen anytime you want..." He shared the wisdom he had gotten a day before from chachi, without batting an eyelid, as if he had discovered it himself. And then to end up the sentence, he inserted his warm hands under his shirt that she was wearing, and drew her closer for a passionate kiss. Her heart jumped in her throat, her skin had goosebumps all over, she felt his fingers kneading her skin skillfully like he was playing his guitar. Hadn't he always told her, she was his most favourite instrument? But now, she wasn't just the guitar, she was the mouth organ, and piano and perhaps the violin too.. Its illegal to be this hot, she kept on complaining as he kept kissing her and poor cups of tea on the table ruefully went cold.
"Do you think anything has changed between us?"
He found it funny that she asked it today, just a night after they got married. Yes, he felt different, he felt more responsible, much more protective. He felt like he suddenly had the world at his fingers, that he couldn't be happier. But the only thing he told her at that moment was "Yes, I love you more now."