MoonRiver 2: Colder

The spill of cinema goers and the noise that was a mixture of reviews, songs and scene discussions churned around Regal Cinema, making it impossible to hear one’s thoughts unless they were hurled out of the mind with the force of a hundred waterfalls. Relieved of the multiple tortures that were the movie, Cauvery turned to Lalitha, who stood at the fringes of the spill, lighting a Benson. Sandhya stood beside her, in a short green kurta and jeans, with a stole wrapped around her shoulder, observing and contemplating the crowd. She wondered if Sandhya had actually moved on, and was entirely free of Ashok the bastard. Rahul came up behind Lalitha, bummed her smoke. Kavi was somewhere, attached to his cell phone. Upon his return, an unspoken agreement has them walking towards Leopold. The sounds and smells there are strangely familiar, and help them all settle into their own thoughts for a while.

Cauvery is lighting a cigarette, a Wills Classic Milds, when Lalitha says, “Do you think she should have married him in the end?”
“She didn’t. She just danced with him and the dholak,” said Cauvery.
“I think she meant Aishwarya’s sister,” said Kavi.
“Who gives a shit.”
“C’mon, Cauvery, you of all people should have something to say about it,” claims Rahul, looking a little disgruntled at her reply. Had she said it was a bad movie, he could have come up with a strong statement like I Hated The Movie. Cauvery tends to be technical at times like these, which is a comfort to Rahul.
Sandhya watches the ease with which they converse, all of them, and wonders if it is prudent to feel a little jealous. Not of the ease alone, but also of the freedom that Lalitha and Cauvery have given themselves. She looks at Rahul to find the devotional light in his eyes faintly repulsive. Should her thoughts shock her, she wonders. Its not too late, only about ten thirty, but she suddenly wants to go home.

Lalitha watches Sandhya as she swallows a long sip from her glass. Its water. She would never go so low as beer. She feels Sandhya’s restiveness making its way into her and wishes Sandhya would go. It would be cruel to feel that way, but she can’t stop her thoughts. What does one do, while over inane conversations at the dinner table, someone starts pinching at your peace of mind? She looks at Rahul and Kavi. They could be considered good looking, Rahul with his conservative hair and shaved face. His rimless glasses, that made him look a tad older. The shirts and the collars and the trousers. No one in their right mind would have expected Lalitha to fall for Rahul. Unless they knew better. And then there was Kavi. She looked at his long shaggy hair, contemplating whether she should bitch about the blonde highlights now. Perhaps later. She takes in his short multi coloured kurta – one she bought from Varanasi. His expensive little watch. The easy smile and the quick affection. Kavi made a wonderful brother. Even if they did not share parents.

Rahul feels it as well. The sudden lack of complacency in Sandhya. The sudden bursts of irritation and anger. A look at Lalitha confirms his doubt. Suddenly he wishes Sandhya were gone. And immediately feels guilt creeping in. he figures Lalitha and Cauvery feel the same, but without the free helping of guilt. He runs his fingers through his hair. And winces, remembering how he would do the same to Lalitha’s hair a while back. Oh well. Its hair. It grows.

Kavi is tired. Very tired of his mobile phone. And his job. There was a time he could take pictures forever. There was a time he loved his Nikons more than life. Now was not that time. Now was just about models, agencies, clothes, designers, media types, marketing assholes, ball talk and fucking all or one of them at any given point of time. Then he looks at Sandhya, so far off from all of this that makes his world, and thinks he cannot talk to her. He cannot talk to people who do not work like him. Who do not behave like him. Who do not bull shit. That’s why he can talk to Cauvery. Then, he gets scared. He cannot converse in the normal world. Suddenly Cauvery’s crankiness is justified yet annoying. Suddenly Lalitha’s quirkiness is pissing off. Suddenly Rahul’s pseudo MBA image is appealing to the point of wanting to try on that blue shirt and those rimless glasses. And Sandhya’s confusion is attractive. He rubs his hands over his face.

He rubs his hands over his face. A gesture she knows. A gesture she has come to dislike. It means Kavi is not at peace. Which would mean she will soon lose her peace. She wants, very desperately, for Sandhya to leave. She hates herself for wanting it. For being so cruel, for it is like kicking a puppy. Or slamming the door on the face of that boy from C.R.Y. who knocks to tell you 11.1 crore children are working in unbearable conditions. What a fucking piss off.

I have to leave. The thought takes root, grows into a tree and blossoms. It freezes. And like all things frozen, expands until it fills every space in Sandhya’s mind that is already not occupied. If this were a movie, the person playing Sandhya would have given a VO. Voice Over. It would go on and on and on and then suddenly, in real time, Sandhya would say, now, before she implodes with insecurities and wants:
“I have to go. Its getting late.”
“No its not!” says Lalitha. “Don’t go.”
Rahul nods in agreement. She feels even worse. Kavi suddenly looks grim and agitated, and Cauvery looks resigned.
“Sorry guys, I have to.” And she leaves.

Just another moment in life where something could have happened, but did not. All that happened was the remainder of the bunch went ahead and ordered their meals as Sandhya grabbed a cab off the street and made off homewards.

~~~~~~~~~~
This is not my house. That is the first thought that is in Sandhya’s head and it has now lodged itself there like a bullet evading the finest surgeons. Every time she walks into the house she had once shared with her mother, she thinks This Is Not My House. Sometimes, the entire thought is in capitals, and not just the first alphabets.

Sometimes its in Arial Black Bold Italics size 22.

Today is not one of those days. Today is just the day Sandhya will hate her mother again, just like most women do, and curse her for moving to Pune to live with her sister. Her mother, always wanting to live with like minded, like aged people. Why couldn’t she just live in her home, instead of living here in spirit, reminding Sandhya every single moment, that this was not Sandhya Mhatre’s home, but her mother, Gauri Mhatre’s house. Nothing was like Sandhya would have it. Not the couch, not the dining table, not the bedrooms. Everything belonged to Mom, who now lived in Pune. And a thought strikes her. So funny that the morbid slant of it can be ignored. If Mom dies, will she have to get the house cremated with her?

She hates the house. That much is obvious. She hates the fact that it does not belong to her and therefore its loyalties will never lie towards her. She can’t stop these thoughts, these sudden bursts of anger, even as she overfeeds her mothers Angel Fish. She never knows exactly how much to feed them anyways. It’s not the memories that she hates, mind you. She loves those. They are of Captain and Mrs. Mhatre and their little angel Sandhya, who was the perfectest, prettiest baby ever. She doesn’t even hate the events that took place in it, like her parents divorce. She didn’t really care about it. She was lying, but who cares, right? She had thought Ashok cared. He didn’t. Too bad, she managed. She had friends now, all the other teachers on the foyer where she taught. The women she met at the park where she went for her walks three days a week. Friends from college who she met over the occasional coffee, lunch or MSN chat.

Unfortunately, she thought as she lay on her bed hugging her pillow, they all had lives apart from this.