Anay stepped out of the men's room with a frown, cursing himself for working so hard. It was making him see things that he shouldn't. His slapped his cheek to bring himself back to alertness and blinked several times. The music was soon upon him, and this time it was Chumbawamba tub-thumping in all their raucous glory. The good thing was that it drove away all bizarre thoughts from his head.
He was making his way back to his booth in this particular frame of mind, which was when he saw her.
Her!
His feet stopped of their own volition. Only the broadest of smiles grew on his face. Forgetting everything about everything else, his steps turned in the direction of the girl he had spotted, and in four quick steps, he was at her table, overlooking her as she was engaged in deep conversation with a friend.
It took him just a moment to recall her name—in fact, he had never forgotten it—and then he called out, "Shanaya!"
The girl whirled in her seat. "Oh, my gosh! Is that you, Anay? Anay, really?"
She stood up at once, and he could not stop smiling. She still smelled of lavender talc like all those years ago. All of a sudden, nothing mattered. The music, the cacophony around them, the waiters running about, the friends that they had come with. Everything ceased to exist.
"It has been so many years! Fourteen years? Fifteen?" Anay said, calculating in his mind. "You have hardly changed!"
"But you have! You are a man now. Oh, that came out wrong. You know what I mean."
"I do!" He laughed. And then they both laughed again.
"Come, let's sit at that table for a while..." she proposed. As if by some kind of enchantment, there was suddenly an empty table at the far end of the busy pub.
"But your friend..."
"Gina won't mind. Just give me a minute and I'll join you."
Anay could not quell the thoughts in his mind. All these wonderful things happening in his life one after the other—getting the apartment, getting the deal, and now meeting the girl who he had his first crush on—if there was something like living the dream, this was it. Shanaya Gupta! He still remembered how besotted he had been with her in tenth grade. In class, she used to sit three rows ahead of him, looking just as lovely as she did now. Their paths crossed on several occasions. Both were brilliant at all three things that mattered in school—academics, art, and sport—and they were often teamed up in interschool competitions. Those spells were both exciting and torturous to the hormonal Anay. He was so close to her but didn't have the guts to speak out his heart. All he did was to fantasize about her not just in his bed at nights and during long reprieves in the bathroom, but also when he was with her. And then there was that one occasion—that one single occasion—when they kissed.
They had been visiting another school for the science exhibition. There were four of them, but all that mattered to him was that she was in the team. They had had a spectacular win and amidst all the rejoicing, when the teams were waiting for the school bus to arrive to take them home, Anay and Shanaya fell back. As they walked that long corridor of the host school, their fingers grazed each other. She looked at him. There was a peculiar expression on her face. He knew she was ready. His brain stopped functioning and instinct took over. He held her hand and she yielded. The next moment, he placed his lips on hers and gave vent to his passions.
It was their first kiss, but it did not seem like that to him, for he had played it out in his mind for months. If their friends had not come looking for them, goodness knows what else might have happened.
"Hi!" Shanaya said as she hopped on the seat across him. "Deep in thought?"
Anay smiled uneasily. Trying to hide his embarrassment, he said, "Just these thoughts all came flooding back... of our school days."
"They couldn't have been better," she said casually. "But it's so good to meet you, ya! Tell me about yourself. When did you move to Mumbai? What are you doing here?"
The next ten minutes, he updated her about himself. Then she did the same. He did not know how much he retained of it, though. All he could do was stare at her face. It was still so... so girl-like!
"So, who are you here with?" she asked.
"Huh, what?"
"Hey, snap out of your dreaming! I asked you who have you come with..."
"J-just friends..." Anay said. "They are sitting there at that table." He pointed to them. Renee looked back. They had noticed him sitting with a girl and let him be alone.
"She's cute, ya!" Shanaya said, indicating Renee. "Girlfriend?"
"Oh, of course not..." Anay said, a tad too strongly. "I am as single as they come."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"I can't believe you are single. A romantic guy like you..."
Anay blushed. "What about you?"
"You see that sad girl sitting at that table sipping a margarita there alone?" Shanaya pointed. "Well, Gina is my only friend here in Mumbai. That's all."
"So, single you too..." Anay said, a grin sporting his face.
"Uh-huh..."
"You come here often?"
"No... first time."
"Well, you can, you know," Anay said. "I do... and if you feel like, you can sit with us too. We are all lonely hearts here. Let's be lonely together."
"Done!" she said.
For the rest of the evening, they sat with each other. They laughed and slapped each other's arms playfully and decided on a combined dinner order. When that was done, Shanaya said, almost heavily, "It has been such a lovely evening, Anay. Imagine bumping into you like this! Some things, as they say, are meant to happen. But now I have to go. Our residential colony is a bit strict, you see? Gina and I are roomies, and that's how we got the apartment, otherwise who rents out apartments to a single girl?"
Anay didn't want the evening to end. "Let's keep in touch?"
"Of course!" she said and then she entered her number on his phone.
***
They were outside The Bandana now, Anay and his friends, waiting for their respective cabs. Anay was in a sort of a trance. Was this really happening? He had never really stopped thinking of Shanaya for all these years, and now she was here, practically dropped into his lap.
Kautuk came running. "Thank my lucky stars you guys didn't leave."
"How can we leave without you?" Anay asked. He was standing on the curb while Vishwa and Renee were at a distance, their bodies practically rubbing into each other behind a closed newspaper stall.
Kautuk sighed. "I know you won't. But you know... Vishwa and Renee cannot think of anything but each other, and you have a million things to think about. Easy to forget a stooge like me!"
"Shut up!" Anay laughed. "Where were you?"
Kautuk raised his little finger. "Loo!" Then seeing the lingering smile on Anay's face, he asked, "So, who was she?"
Anay turned alive at that question. "School friend, man!" he said with a distant longing.
"Ah, I see. Childhood friend. The special kind!"
Anay smiled. She was indeed special.
Kautuk took a heavy drag of the cigarette he had lit and blew a smoke ring in the air. Looking at it float away almost meditatively, he said, "The past."
"What does that mean?" Anay asked.
"It's interesting, isn't it? The past? And the way it comes back all of a sudden, as if it to remind us that we haven't moved at all?"
Anay zoned out. It was philosophical Kautuk time again.
He patted Kautuk on his shoulders. The guy was almost doddering on his feet. Though Anay had paid the bill, he had kept no count of how much lager had been ordered. A white cab came up and stopped next to them. "My ride's here," Anay said. "And there's yours too. Call those two lovebirds."
Renee and Vishwa came up. A strange quirk of fate was that, due to the directions of their houses, Renee and Anay shared a cab and Vishwa and Kautuk shared another. Anay got into the cab and waited for Renee to say goodbye to Vishwa with a wet, sloppy kiss. Anay then allowed Renee to get in and then stepped into the cab after her. They watched the other cab drive away in silence.
Then, as their cab started, Renee looked at Anay, wiped Vishwa's saliva off her mouth, and smiled. It was the smile of two people that shared a big secret. "Finally, he's gone!" she said with a sigh. "Oh, I thought he'd never go. He was extra horny today, the poor sucker."
Anay kept his hand on Renee's leg and gently squeezed it. "You should tell him," he said.
"No, man. You know Vishwa. He's too thick to take a hint," said Renee. "But he's got a good heart. I still don't know how I'll tell him."
"You must."
Renee slid closer to Anay. "You know it will break up our group. We have such a good thing going. What's the need to make an announcement?"
Anay relaxed in his seat. He let his hand graze her soft thigh and ride up till as far as he wanted it to. She did not resist. Instead she said with a dried-up throat, "But you know I don't feel for him like I do for you, Anay. I cannot wait till I tell him."
"Me neither," he said and slid his finger under the soft fabric of her panties and felt the tenderness of her vagina. She spread her legs as she let out her first moan. That was where he lost it. To add to it, she brought her hand to his crotch and found his bulge and grabbed hold of it.
Amidst heavy breathing, Anay urged the driver to go as slow as he could and bill extra if he wanted. Then he leaned in and placed his lips on Renee's. He shut his eyes and felt the pulpy warmth of her tongue inside his mouth.
But just as he was surrendering himself to that moment of stolen passion, Anay's mind conjured another face. It happened with the rapidity of a clap of lightning on a stormy night. And that face was of Shanaya. He thought he was back in that lonely school corridor, leaning in close for the kiss, his chest rubbing against her breasts, her hands on his ass, grinding his front into her. It was all he wanted for the night.
And then a sentence spoken to him earlier hit him hard. 'The past comes back to remind us that we haven't moved at all.'
"What happened?" Renee asked.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," he lied and looked out of the window as she continued to do her number on him.
***
Anay woke up in the middle of the night in his little apartment, gasping for breath. It was a warm summer night when he had gone to sleep, but now his room was unbearably cold. Still in half-sleep, he found his quilt and pulled it over himself. The night was still dark, and in the snugness of the quilt, his head fell easy on the pillow again, his eyes closed, and sleep began to engulf him.
These were the moments he hated.
Three years ago, when he had moved to the big city, alone, he did not realize what a lonely struggle it would be. He had been one of the fortunate ones to have found work and company right away, but he also knew that those weren't there to stay. He came from a large family, one where all his needs had been always taken care of, including preparing and serving his meals. Here, in the dingy apartments that he got to stay in, he had to wash his own plates and underwear. There was the time when he fell ill for a week. That was when he was compelled to call back home, knowing that just a soothing word from someone he had grown up with might make him better. But he stopped short of pressing the green button on the phone. He could not make the call. Wouldn't it be selfish — calling home only when you needed them?
There was the noise again, the noise that had woken him up. A flapping noise. Not unlike the wings of a bird.
Fucking hallucinations! Those came with the loneliness, he guessed. He had lost count of the number of nights when he had been aroused in the middle of the sleep like this and opened his eyes to a dark, empty apartment. That feeling that something had been sitting on his chest and was still there now watching him from some corner of the room, was unshakeable. Whenever that feeling came over, it undid everything that he had done. He forgot all his joys, all his successes, and only remembered that he was terribly, terribly alone, and the ghosts of his loneliness were looking back at him.
It happened again. This time, much more furious. Like it was right there in front of him.
All at once, he knew with a rising dread that this night was different. Had some night bird entered the house?
He opened his eyes. With great discomfort, he blinked several times to acclimatize to the darkness. For a moment, he saw nothing.
And then, he almost died at the sight in front of him.
Dangling from a corner of the ceiling, covering an entire one-fourth of it, was a large black mass. He could not tell at once what it was; it looked like an infestation of mold on the walls. But there was the constant sound of movement, like something fluttering in the breeze. And he saw the sides of it moving, like many waves on the ocean. And then, his terror-filled eyes fell on the prime spot of this billowing blight.
It was a rounder area with a prominent protuberance. He could tell nothing of it though... and then, with the swiftness of a memory attacking the mind, he realized it was a head.
He was sure when the eyes opened. Blue blazing orbs, piercing their way to him in the darkness.
He did not know if he passed out then or fell asleep, for the blackness that surrounded him until morning was absolute.