When Only Love Remains (16 page)

‘But I’m sure you have dated better women,’ frowns Avanti. The little game is still on, and they have reached the hotel lobby. They sit by the poolside of the in-house restaurant and dip their feet into the cool water. The waiter asks them if they want to order anything, and just so they can sit there, they order lemonade.

‘Remember our first time?’ asks Devrat.

‘It was three months after we first met. I wonder why you waited so long to make a move. You made me really insecure. At points I felt a little unwanted,’ says Avanti.

‘You think I wanted to wait? Obviously not! But I didn’t want you to think why I wanted to be with you was because I wanted to sleep with you or anything. I didn’t want to spoil whatever we had on misplaced lust. And I was always a little scared to hurt you, and—’

‘I get it,’ says Avanti, her memories of being abused now long gone, buried. The fear, somehow, is now gone, and she feels protected in Devrat’s arms. She doesn’t know how he does it. And when he’s down, she just reminds him that he’s awesome by sending mails from those twenty accounts from which she used to (they had a big laugh when she told him she was ‘them’, the fans from Dehradun). They save each other.

‘But quite frankly, my memory of our first time is slightly blurred. Not the imagery, but what it felt like.’

‘What did it feel like?’ asks Avanti. The hotel’s restaurant is closing down now. The waiter asks them if they will still be sitting there and Avanti tells him it’s their second wedding anniversary, so the waiter lets them stay.

‘I don’t want to sound all horny, but I clearly remember how you dropped your dress on the floor and slipped into the bed next to me, how you let your fingers slip down to my chest and then lower still till you got to the button of my trousers . . . okay, I think I should stop because I’m turning myself on,’ chuckles Devrat.

‘Go on,’ prods Avanti.

‘The point is that I remember the mechanics of it, how we did it, where we did it, the grunts and the moans, and I’m sure it was awesome, but I don’t remember what I exactly felt in those moments. What I do remember is that it felt like . . . like I had everything in life, in a very deep, profound and sexy way. It was a little shallow to think, but when I stood tall after you had come, I did feel like such a stud. Like, you know, like I was the shiz or whatever that slang is.’

‘I’m listening.’

Devrat continues, ‘Though it was a little embarrassing with my paunchy, unfit body. If I were you and I saw it I would have dumped myself. “I like you naked,” is what you said after our first time and I was wondering if you had started doing drugs or something. I will never forget that sentence. It was so good for my ego, you have no idea,’ laughs Devrat.

‘But I do like you naked.’

‘God knows how. It’s the least flattering image I have ever seen. I would rather see pictures of a crime scene.’

‘Because I love you.’

‘And I love you. Do you want to go back to the room? And it’s not because all this naked talk has suddenly got me horny, but generally, although I have to admit I’m a little horny but you can’t blame me for that because it would be an insult to you if I were not. I’m slightly lost in what I really wanted to say, but that’s also not new because you do render me speechless quite often, which is strange as well because I should never be out of words, so I will just love you,’ says Devrat.

‘I got the last part.’

They dry off their feet and start walking to their room.

‘Happy six months’ anniversary,’ says Avanti.

They share a pizza while they watch television, having soaked themselves in a bathtub till their skin shrivelled up. They slip into the fresh, warm blankets and spend the night telling each other how much they love each other. Soon, they are kissing. A little later, spent, Avanti tells Devrat that he’s nothing like what she had expected him to be. ‘I never thought you would be such a child.’

‘You just slept with a child,’ quips Devrat.

‘Stop killing my vibe, now, Devrat.’

‘Fine. Go on.’

‘I like how you’re this lost boy with an evil mind.’

‘That’s an oxymoron,’ argues Devrat.

‘No it’s not. Sometimes you’re this boy who’s totally at sea, not knowing what to do, looking for me. And at others, you’re this sly boy who would cancel all movie plans, and make me read your favourite comic books, which I reluctantly read. Just so my father and I have something to talk about.’

‘That was an epic move. Another rare moment of extreme “studness”,’ says Devrat.

‘It sure was. I remember how you were quiet at the dinner table that night while my father and I fought about who would win in a battle of Superman vs. Batman. My father kept on insisting that all Batman needed was a water cannon of liquefied Kryptonite and Superman would be done. I don’t know who won that discussion but I have never seen my father in the same light ever since. We have conversations. We talk about you. And I can do that because he’s not really my father, he’s a friend. And there’s so much to catch up on. I love you because you gave him to me. You should listen to what Nani says about you. She would get us married if you ever meet her. So, you know, stay away from her.’

‘Why would you think I would want to? I would love to get married to you and feel like a stud every night.’

Avanti blushes at this. Soon, they are off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Devrat wakes up to find Avanti crying, sitting on the ground with her head buried in her knees, crouched. Devrat takes the blanket with him and wraps it around her and sit on the ground next to her. Avanti snuggles up to Devrat, who hums a medley, and she sobs freely. A little later she falls silent.

‘You want to talk about it?’ whispers Devrat into Avanti’s ears.

‘No. Just be with me. Save me today.’

‘You save me tomorrow.’

Devrat nods and wraps his arms around her.

Avanti and Devrat complete a year today, and Avanti wants to make it special. Devrat’s a shy boy and he doesn’t like big parties and celebrations, so Avanti has resorted to what he likes the most—words. For the past one month, she has been trying to write a letter, something that encapsulates the year that passed by. The pages are streaked with corrections, and Avanti lets them be. That’s how he must like it, with the imperfections.

She’s waiting in a hotel in Mumbai for Devrat’s flight to land.

Quite nervous about how Devrat will react to the letter, she hasn’t had the courage to call him yet.

Avanti starts to calculate the time it would have taken Devrat to deplane and the time the bus would take from the aircraft to the airport, collecting the baggage and getting here. He should have been here by now, Avanti thinks. But she smiles, thinking that Devrat must have stopped on his way to get something for her. They are completing their first year together, after all. She orders a soup and starts to distract herself. The clock ticks away and she’s a little worried now. Avanti calls on Devrat’s number but no one’s picking up the call. Devrat must have dozed off in the cab to the hotel, Avanti thinks, and starts to brush her hair.

She calls on that number. It still isn’t answered. Why hasn’t the cab reached yet? She leaves the soup unfinished and switches off the television. She calls again and there’s still no answer. She holds her head and is trying to tell herself that maybe he missed his flight, maybe the flight was diverted, maybe he slept in the cab . . . and just then, the doorbell rings. It’s like a weight lifted all her shoulders!

‘Thank God!’ Avanti’s eyes tear up.

In those brief moments she had imagined the worst things in the world. She imagined her world end with Devrat. She found herself trading with God, every good memory, every bit of happiness in the future, for Devrat to be at her door, unharmed. She checks herself in the blackness of the television and gets the door. Outside there’s a man hidden behind a huge bouquet of flowers. And he’s not Devrat.

‘This is for you,’ the man says. ‘Happy Anniversary!’ The man places the bouquet of flowers on the table and gives her a card which says,
Can’t wait to be with you, Devrat
.

Avanti hugs that bouquet of flowers, and though it might be psychological, she can smell him in those flowers. She reads the little card again. There’s something about Devrat’s words, even the ones that are seemingly mundane and boring, that stirs Avanti. Smiling, she calls Devrat again, already imagining him bursting through the door, sweeping her off her feet, dropping her on the bed, and kissing her till they are both out of breath. The call is received after five rings and she starts to scream. ‘I just got the flowers! They are beautiful. And so is the card. But just the seven words? That’s kind of unfair, isn’t it? Never mind! Where are you? It’s been so long! When you didn’t pick up the call, I got so scared. NEVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN! I’m tired of you keeping your phone on silent. Now, where are you? I’m getting old just waiting for you!’

There’s silence on the other side.

‘Ma’am.’ It’s the voice of a woman.

‘Who’s this?’ asks Avanti.

‘This is the trauma centre of Eight Hills Hospital. The owner of this phone was severely injured in a road accident.’

Avanti sees her world crumbling. She falls to the ground and she passes out.

Avanti was the first one to reach the hospital and she was the first one to see Devrat’s broken and bleeding body. There was the police and the howling family of the dead driver nearby. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought she would faint soon. There were no answers given to her in the first couple of hours that she went rushing from one place to another, slowly losing her mind. She was the one who had called Devrat’s parents and told them about the accident. Her mother had shouted in a voice that echoed a grief that only a mother can feel. Devrat’s father, in his broken voice, had told Avanti that they would be there soon. Although Avanti felt like she had killed them already.

She hadn’t been able to say a word or even cry until her father flew down to Mumbai, and she broke down in his arms, crying like a hurt animal, crying for hours, remembering Devrat’s smashed jaw and his twisted leg and the pool of blood he was in. ‘He will be okay . . . he will be okay . . .’ she had kept muttering to her father.

Before her father had joined her, she was the next of kin to Devrat, running around, filling forms, trying to make sense of what doctors were trying to tell her and all she could make out were words that spelled doom—fracture, rupture, heart, rib cage, blood loss. She had just nodded, shaking her head in disbelief, just mumbling over and over again if Devrat would be okay, if Devrat would be okay, if Devrat would be okay . . .

The pain was physical, and she could feel it in her own body. She had seen Devrat, unconscious, lying on the bed, while they prepared the Operation Theatre. She had seen him bleed, and she had bled with him. Her puppy, her little puppy, was wrapped in blood-soaked sheets and she felt her heart explode and she felt she had just died.

When she saw his broken hand, the same hands she had held for hours, she couldn’t breathe. She had fallen to the ground gasping for breath, and she vomited. Those first few moments were of immense trauma and she kept going back to the OT door still thinking that all of this is a dream and Devrat is still out there singing and all the blood, that awful blood, was not Devrat’s but someone else’s.

For the next three days, Devrat underwent a host of surgeries to save his internal organs. He had already slipped into a coma, a defensive mechanism of the body to save itself from the pain, and all Avanti could think of was her pain, how every part of her wanted to die and never wake up, how she desperately strained her brain to wake up from this awful dream, how she cursed everything and everyone, how she still cried in disbelief that all this was truly happening.

Devrat was in there and they were slowly cutting him apart, making him bleed, putting him back together and the thought always made her sick in the stomach. On the second day itself, Avanti had fainted and contracted a fever and no matter how hard her father, or Devrat’s parents, who themselves were devastated to say the least, tried she refused all medication till the time doctors told them some good news.

Every time the doctors used to come and tell them that they were repairing some or the other organ or tissue or bone, Avanti would want to shout at them for even daring to touch Devrat. Avanti had lashed out against the doctor who had asked if Devrat had signed any organ donation forms; she had tried to hit the doctor and had asked him to shut up and do his fucking job even as her father held her back.

During the first week, she had wanted to barge into the OT and wanted to bellow at the doctors who were nothing but incompetent fools and she would often shout that outside till the time she was threatened to be thrown out. She wouldn’t sleep, she wouldn’t eat and she wouldn’t stop pacing around in the hospital.

Even after the seventh day, there were surgeries every day, there were doctors running to his room and performing emergency tests and operations and every time Avanti read panic on the doctors’ faces, she had wanted to go and hold Devrat’s hand and tell him not to go, to stay with her. There were times she would start laughing while was crying, still hoping that all this is a dream and she’s back in her room in Dehradun, and all this will be gone when she wakes up the next morning.

That day, Avanti was sitting on a corner bench, crying when a senior doctor told Devrat’s parents, ‘We have done the surgeries. He’s stable now. But he’s still in a coma. His body has started to heal but he still hasn’t gained consciousness. We will have to wait and see when that happens.’

‘Wait? What do you mean wait?’ asked Avanti angrily.

‘You can’t tell about these situations, Avanti. It could be today, tomorrow, next week or next month. We can’t say conclusively.’

‘WHAT do you mean you can’t say conclusively?’ grumbles Avanti and her father restrains her from standing up and hitting the doctor.

‘We are doing the best we can,’ said the doctor and asked if he could talk to Devrat’s father alone.

Avanti had slumped on the chair, and when everyone was talking to the doctors, she sneaked past them and entered Devrat’s room. The room’s quietude was punctured by the beeping sounds of the machines that had kept Devrat alive. Devrat was lying on the bed, barely alive, battered and bandaged almost beyond recognition. Avanti’s tears kept streaking down her cheek, uninhibited. He had been put together, there were bandages and stitches all over his body, her little puppy was barely in one piece. Quietly, she went and sat beside him and kissed him on his ear, the only part that was not bandaged, and whispered, ‘Happy Anniversary, puppy.’

She started to cry.