Not asleep

I can feel Avantika’s soft hands running over my chest. She is sleeping, tired from what we finished about an hour ago. Avantika has always been good in bed. Over the last five years, she has only gotten better. Even tonight, when she crept up on the bed, her eyes dripping with passion and her hands going to all the places they should have, I felt like a man bereft of love since eternity. It took me just a few seconds to rip every shred of cloth off her and subject her to pain and ecstasy.

She was incredible with her hands, her tongue and her body tonight. I know the reason. She wanted to tire me out and make me sleep. She had her reasons. She was getting worried about me. I was getting worried about me. I have not slept for the last fifteen days. Neither have I been to my office or the gym. She was afraid I might fall sick.

Last night she asked me to see a psychologist or a therapist. I was totally averse to the idea.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to see a therapist?’ she had asked.

‘No! I have not gone mad yet.’

‘But, Deb, you need help,’ she said. ‘You have not slept since the blast.’ ‘I am trying, Avantika. It’s just that I can’t manage to push those images

out of my head.’

‘What images? You want to talk about it?’

‘So you will be my therapist?’ I smirked.

‘I can try,’ she said and gave me one of her trademark cute smiles. I paused for a while and then started to talk.

 ‘Umm ... there ... there ... were people who were looking at me. With no hands or legs, or whose stomachs had been blown apart ... they were begging for help. And all I could do was stare. I wish I could’ve saved them ... At least one of them ...’

‘It’s not your fault, Deb.’

‘I know. But those faces, those eyes that looked at me with sheer horror in them, they wanted me to help them. I ... I ... just can’t forget that. There was a small kid who tried getting up thrice, but his legs had been blown off from below his knees. He ... he was bleeding. He looked at me. He was crying, screaming ... and then went silent ... his eyes went vacant as he lay there in a pool of his own blood. I couldn’t do anything. There were scores of people like that kid ... they wanted me to help them ...’ My voice trailed off.

‘They did not want you to help, Deb. They wanted anyone to help them, and you were there. But it wasn’t your fault that you could not be of help. No one could have been ... It is not your fault. You’re only human ...’ Avantika said.

She came close and hugged me. I closed my eyes and those images flashed before me again. ‘I wish I had saved just one of them.’

Maybe I do need to see a therapist. It is not that I have not tried sleeping. Sex. Sleeping pills. A Tusshar Kapoor movie. Nothing has worked. Ever since that day, the images have been haunting me. I don’t understand why it is taking me so long to recover. I’d never thought I could be so weak. Why should I care about unknown dead people and their families? I mean—who does that, right? I should go on with my life and forget what happened. After all, I am alive. Why should I care about the others? I know I should move on. But that’s exactly what I have not been doing.

I switch on the television. The news of the blast barely finds a mention now. A gay party raid finds more airtime. It is sick and creepy, but I feel like watching the news of the blast repeatedly. It is that place, that moment, that chaos that changed everything. The more I am repulsed by it, the more I am drawn to the same place. I want to be there again. There is a part of me there now.

Finally, I find a channel that is running a report on the blast. I increase the volume a little and listen. There is nothing new. No one has come up and taken the responsibility. I want someone to do that. At least then, I will be able to direct my anger towards somebody.

 I turn it off and slowly remove Avantika’s arm from my chest. I get up from the bed, make myself a cup of warm milk and stand in the balcony. I stare into the wide empty space and feel nothing. What happened fifteen days ago killed a part of me. I have recurring images of ashes flying around me. In those images, I am bleeding, helpless, staggering and looking around for somebody to help me. I am taken to a dingy hospital on a bloodied stretcher and I wake up without a leg or an arm.

My head is filled with images such as these. They change a little every time. Some of the times I die, at other times I lose an arm or a leg. It happened to someone else. It could have been me. This keeps repeating in my head. I keep telling myself how lucky I have been.

Avantika is happy today. I am smiling today, although it’s forced. She thinks it is the sex from last night. Yes, it was good, but that is not the reason. It is just that I don’t want to end up crazy. It was just a blast, right? It happens every month somewhere or the other. People die. Some more painfully than others. Big deal! I have to forget that day. I have to get over it. Many people have. It should not be too hard for me either.

‘Are you feeling better, baby?’ Avantika asks. She is wearing a skimpy silver night suit with white lacy embroidery on it. I’m sure she expects me to skip breakfast and make love to her. At least a shower together. I can sense it in her eyes, in her lingering touches and her quiet whispers. However, I must disappoint her today. I have to leave for office and not think about the blast.

‘Yes, I am,’ I say. ‘Can you pack the breakfast? I will have it on the way?’

‘You are going to office? Are you sure?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ I say and get up. I can see Avantika’s face droop. Obviously! I should have been making sweet love to her and not be thinking about what happened sixteen days earlier, but I cannot help it. I take my bag and leave the house.

‘Deb?’ Shrey says as he picks up the call. ‘Yes, I am coming to office.’

‘You are? Everything fine now?’ he asks. ‘Yes,’ I say.

It is embarrassing to admit to your guy friends that you are bothered with such petty things. People die every day. It takes only one gesture to lose all

 respect as far as being macho is concerned. You can lift ridiculous weights in the gym and stop trains with bare hands all your life, but the moment someone spots a pink stuffed toy in your hand, you are screwed for life. The blast was the pink stuffed toy for me. I faltered. I am screwed for life.

After all, for everyone else, it was just a bomb blast, and I was at least 500 feet away! I spent fifteen days locked up like a scared little kid. I have lost all my machoness.

I look out of the auto. It has been long since I stepped into one of these. But now, for a few days, this will have to be my mode of transport. My car was burnt beyond recognition. Call me a sissy, but I was a little sceptical about the auto too. Who knows? Another bomb carrier?

The auto takes a different route. It takes a left, and I see the blast site from a distance. The cars are still lined up in their burnt state there and my car is amongst them.

‘Bhaiya, can you drop me there?’ I ask him and point to the parking lot.

The auto driver nods and heads there. I pay him ten rupees more than the fare and get down. He smiles. I had hoped I would feel good after helping a stranger and making him smile—something I couldn’t do that day. But nothing changes. Money can’t buy you happiness. But it does buy terrorists stuff to make bombs with. Now I am pissed at myself. Why can’t I think about anything else?

I walk towards my car. Everything has returned to normalcy. The blood has been washed off the streets. People have found places to park their bikes amidst the burnt cars. There are hawkers on the streets again. I am sure some of them are missing.

I walk close to the car and look around. It is burnt and black. I don’t know what I am doing there. I turn and watch life go by. I look at people and think—Are they going through the same?

I trudge towards the place where the bomb had gone off. The ground is black, charred and there is a huge crater there. I could have been there, I think.

I no longer want to go to office. I take a deep breath and start walking close to the pavement. There is a guy cleaning the street. I wonder if he was around that day. He seems unfazed. Life goes on for him.

‘Dekh ke!’ the cleaner shouts out as I stumble over a dustbin.

‘Fuck,’ I say to myself. My shirt is ruined and I curse the road. It is just not one of my better days. The road cleaner helps me up and I smile at him.

 I thank him and keep walking ahead. Suddenly a voice calls out from behind.

‘Bhaiya!’

I look back to see the cleaner running to me, waving his hand frantically. He is carrying a notebook in his hands. He shows it to me and asks, ‘Is this yours?’

I look at it. It is a diary, which is in tatters. The back cover is totally burnt and its edges have been consumed by fire. I stare at it for a while. It must have dropped out of the dustbin I had just stumbled over. I look at it again. I want to shake my head and walk away, but I can’t.

‘Yes, this is mine,’ I say, taking the diary from him, and thank him. I take a ten-rupee note out of my wallet and hand it to him. He smiles, thanks me and walks away. I clutch the diary and wait on the side of the pavement for an auto. The sides of the pages of the diary crumble in my hands and are reduced to ashes.

The sun has come out and I start to sweat. I look at the diary. It has nothing written on the cover, except the year—2010—which is faded. There is no auto in sight. I sit on the pavement and flip through the contents. It is nearly full. The handwriting is not the best, but it is neat and deliberate. The first few pages are damaged beyond recognition. The top-right corners of the pages keep crumbling into charcoal.

I stare at the burnt diary. This is the diary of someone who must have gotten seriously hurt in that day’s blast, I think. Not many people survived the blast; I was one of the few who did. The diary is in bad shape. It doesn’t look as though the person to whom it belongs would have survived the blast. I open the first unburned page. There is no name.

Just the initials—RD.

‘You’re late’, Shrey looks at me and says.

‘I know. Got stuck,’ I say. I clutch the diary inside my office bag. It is

still there. I have kept myself from reading it.

Shrey and I had been to the same college, Delhi College of Engineering,

now rechristened Delhi Technological University. We had a crazy time there. It was during those days that I had started dating Avantika. She was studying at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) and was even then as lovely. We have a come a long way from then. It’s been many years now. Man! I almost feel like a granddad.

 Anyway, between Shrey and me, he has always been the bright one. My mother loves him and all my ex-girlfriends have always found him very attractive. Clearly, I don’t see what those girls did. Well, Shrey is tall, dark and fairly handsome. His hair is like thin noodles like those African- American disco dancers and it gives him character. The most striking thing about him is his disregard for the impossible. There is nothing in the world he thinks he cannot do. His overconfidence makes him almost cocky. In one crisp sentence—He is a freak.

He has lived in Paris, Goa and other places in strip clubs and with beautiful women for quite some time. After a lot of sex with random European women, he thought he should slow down. And so, he flew back to Delhi. As soon as he did that, he wrecked my life. I was working with American Express and writing books in my free time. The books were doing fairly well and my life was perfect. But, as always, he had different plans for me. And, like a fool, I followed what he said.

A month later, we started our own venture—a publishing house. Starting Chrome Ink Press was his crazy idea. Despite everything, I know this guy is really talented, because I am now making more money than I would ever have had in my old job. Yes, it is hard work in a way, but it’s amazing.

But today, I am in no mood to reflect on how my life has changed ever since Shrey decided that my old life was not the life I should lead. Right now, the initials ‘RD’ are troubling me. My worst fears, the recurring dreams, have just come true. Someone died that day, someone that could have been me. And I have his or her diary in my hands.

There are about a million mails in my inbox but I couldn’t care less about them. I take the diary out of my bag and put it inside the first drawer of my table. The burnt edges make me shiver. The hand that held it that day must have been torn apart. The hand may’ve belonged to one of those bloodied faces that had asked me for help that day and for whom I did nothing.

‘So? Still haunted?’ he asks.

‘Haunted?’

‘The blast, Deb. Avantika told me. These bloody terrorists! Why can’t

they just go home and fuck their wives and sleep peacefully? What’s even more surprising is that no one has come forward to claim responsibility. I think it’s the goddamn government,’ he says, his brain running ahead of himself.

‘Government?’ I ask.

 ‘Yes! With this whole Anna Hazare protest, maybe they’re just saving their ass. They are taking our minds off the protests and the agitations. A few people killed here and there don’t matter, do they?’ he says with absolute conviction. I am sure he heard this on some news channel. It makes some sense, though.

‘Maybe.’

‘Oye, I need to leave to meet someone from the Times. Will you be able to handle everything here?’ he asks.

‘Yes, I will.’

That is our code for a date. We have a few people working under us and we don’t want them to think that we go out during office hours for movies and dates. Because that’s something we do a lot! So whenever we have to go out, we say we have to meet ‘somebody from the Times’. I wave him goodbye, he checks his noodle hair in the mirror and leaves.

There is not much work. There is never much work. I sit in front of the laptop and check my F******k account. F******k is boring when you’re dating the prettiest girl there will ever be.

I don’t want to, but I still end up doing what I’ve been avoiding since morning. I fetch the diary from my drawer and open it.

RD.

I turn over to the first page. There is a short note. I close it immediately. I am not supposed to read it. I am supposed to return it to the rightful owner, but the rightful owner is probably dead. I open the first and the last pages of the diary and look for an address. There is none. It leaves me no choice. I start to read it.

15 June 2010

‘Just as she walked past me, I felt the world come to a standstill, the birds stopped chirping, the wind stopped blowing and the sun stopped shining ... It was only her, it was only me.’

She looked beautiful. I see her with other guys and I feel envious. I’m sure no one around her likes her as much as I do. It’s been a week since I first saw her, and she only looks more beautiful every time I see her. I saw her at the water fountain today. It made my day.

I wish to see her again tomorrow.

Okay. Now, I cannot stop. Personal diaries have always been a weak point for me. Avantika and I had one of our biggest fights when she did not let me read hers. The only part I was interested in was what she thought about me in bed, whether I was bigger than her previous boyfriends, whether I was a better kisser ... That sort of stuff. Well, after a lot of

histrionics and girlish tantrums, she let me read it. I just read the words big and fabulous somewhere in the paragraphs and I was happy. I’m sure she added them after I told her I wanted to read the diary. She threw away her diary the very next day. There are certain privacy boundaries that even people in relationships shouldn’t cross. Like F******k passwords, mail passwords and personal diaries.

Anyway, I flip the page over and see another short note. How can I stop? I almost died along with this guy.

28 June 2010

‘Every day that I don’t see her, is a day not worth remembering. Because ever since I first saw her, she defines my life.’

I saw her again today. Not just saw her. I followed her today. I hope she does not have a boyfriend. Even if she does, it would not matter. She is so beautiful. I see the guys who surround her all the time. They are all creepy. I hope she thinks so too. All of them tried to give her their old books. I even saw a few of them exchange numbers. I wish I were one of them. But I have already sold my books. Maybe I could get new ones for her. And scribble down short, sweet notes for her on every page. But I don’t want to be one of those creepy guys surrounding her. I will let it be.

I wish to see her again tomorrow.

I can read a lot faster than this, but I don’t want to. For every page that I turn I think that this person might be dead. It is a little unsettling. I have already imagined him in my head. He’s probably a geek with big spectacles and oiled hair. The kind who hide behind concrete pillars and stalk the girls they have a crush on. I don’t want the person in my head to end up dead. I flip through the diary, skimming the pages to find out whether he has written his name anywhere. No signs. No numbers. No addresses. Nothing.

I move on to the next day. The page is a little burnt on the sides. I try not to imagine what must have happened to the hand that held that diary.

2 July 2010

‘I don’t know whether my love is shallow or unfounded since we have never talked. But unrequited, untold love is the purest form of love. There is no pretence in that.’

It has been two days and I have not seen her around. I wonder where she is. She looks like someone who studies a lot and doesn’t miss any classes. Maybe she is on a date with someone. Maybe not. I hope not. I will ask her name tomorrow. The guy at the stationery shop will say if he’ll be able to find that out for me. I don’t even know which section she is in. I have missed seeing her the last two days.

I wish to see her tomorrow.

Okay now this guy is creepy. He doesn’t have a life. Stalking somebody this badly? Who does that? My interest dwindles a bit. Though I feel a little sorry for him. I have been through what he went through. I was a geek

 once. Not that a lot has changed. I am still an ugly geek, so I know how that feels.

Please don’t let this guy be dead, I think. But it’s a hollow thought. No one could have survived the impact of the blast after being so close to it. The diary is stark evidence of that.

Anyway, I keep reading.

17 July 2010

‘I don’t agree that if you are intrigued by a girl, you fall more in love with her. The more I know about her, the closer she comes to me. I want to know everything about the person I love.’

Thank you, God! I saw her again today. The stationery guy had a lot of information about her. Her name is Ragini and she has left Lady Shri Ram College to come here. She is in third year too. That means I can’t give her my books. She moved in with her aunt here after her parents shifted to London this year. Maybe she is from a rich family, but I don’t care about that.

I like the name. I am saying this name repeatedly in my head ever since I heard it. It sounds good. The stationery shop guy asked me to go and talk to her. He is a little crazy. She is pretty as a fairy. And I am ... well, anyway. I know I don’t stand a chance. But some day, I will talk to her. Till that time, I will just look at her and feel happy. Happiness. Yes, that is what she looks like. I like her. She is like the warm morning sun on a cold winter morning to me.

I wish to see her tomorrow.

I am drawn to his story now. He might not be great with words but there is a certain honesty about him and what he writes. I can instantly feel a connection. It’s almost like I have written those words for Avantika. It is lovely and terrifying at the same time. I can’t be dead. I can’t leave Avantika behind. I feel sorry for him. Ragini would have been proud to read this, right? A guy so selfless in his love? Pure and untainted. Not a speck of lust.

It’s not seen these days, is it? Guys don’t count days to when they would talk to a girl they like; instead, they try to guess when the girl would kiss them or make out with them. Avantika and I had kissed on our first date itself and had made out in the second, but I loved Avantika. I could have waited for an eternity for those things to happen. I was just lucky that I didn’t have to. I am so glad I did not have to stalk her like this guy.

The dead guy. Every time this thought comes to my head, I am scared. What if she’d got married to the guy? 2010, right? That’s almost two years back! What if the dead guy eventually gets married to this girl, Ragini? Fuck.

 Just as I flip over to another page, a barrage of mails floods my inbox. Work. I close the diary, put it back in my drawer and get to work. The downside of running a publishing house is that you get many junk mails. And you don’t know they are junk till you’ve spent at least twenty minutes on each of them. Even today, there are a few manuscripts from new authors lying in a stack, waiting to be reviewed. Some of them are just-okay some of them are really good and some of them will take years to finish. Picking out that perfect manuscript written by a sensible author is a tough task. It’s more about luck than anything else, but I love doing that.

I flip through some manuscripts. They are all college love stories. Yes, they are done to death, but they work! And I still like them. I lean back into my chair. This is a lot better than being at home and waiting for Avantika to get home and get out of her clothes.

Just then, Avantika calls and it brings an instant smile to my face, like a small kid’s eyes light up outside a candy shop. Five years and nothing has changed. She still makes me the happiest I can ever be. She still makes my world go round.

‘Deb?’ she asks.

‘Hi! What’s up?’

‘Umm, nothing really. Are you okay? Have you eaten?’ she asks. She has

reason to be concerned. I have been acting a little strange over the last fortnight.

‘Yes, yes,’ I say.

‘Are you working?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay See you in the evening then,’ she says.

‘Wait, Avantika! Tell me something-if you find a personal diary on the

road, will you read it?’

‘I will not,’ she says. She is almost instantly pissed off. ‘There is a reason

why it is personal.’

‘And ... what if the person is dead?’ I ask.

‘What?’ she says. There is some noise in the background. ‘Listen, Deb, I

need to go. Can we talk about it when I get home?’ she asks sweetly. ‘Sure,’ I say and disconnect the call.

I feel traumatized, disturbed. This could be the diary of a dead man. His

last written words could be in my hands. It might have things that he had

 wanted to tell his friends, girlfriends, family ... and might have never said before. That’s too much pressure. I’m a little scared now of what’s to come. I try and put myself in his place. If I were to write everything I feel about

everyone in a diary and die, would I like my diary to be read? Yes, I would. I would like my last words to reach the people I love. They have a right to know what they meant to me. I wouldn’t miss any chance to tell Avantika that I love her. Or my parents. Even Shrey, for that matter.

I get back to work. Shrey has not come back from his meeting with ‘somebody from the Times’ yet. I am sure the conference table is his bed and the discussions are limited to both of them saying just one word—Yes! Yes! Yes!

Five hours have passed by and it’s already six in the evening. I leave the office and look for an auto. I have the diary with me. I cannot wait to get back to it. I sit in the auto and open the diary, even when a part of me doesn’t want to. I know it will take me just an hour to finish the full diary and I don’t want it to end so soon. But the curiosity is killing me. I open it and start reading slowly.

25 August 2010

‘A whiff of her perfume, a tiny chirp from her sweet lips and just one look from those almond-shaped eyes make my day. I need nothing else.’

Ragini. I tried to stand really close to her at the bus stop today. She was alone. I wanted to talk to her, but didn’t know what to say. She looked beautiful and I stood there staring at her. The sun reflected off her glazing long black hair. I followed her into her bus. People around me saw me stare at her. I didn’t care. I got down where she got down. It was pretty far away from my place, but I couldn’t care less. I walked behind her till she entered the gate of a building. Sea View Apartments. I walked back to the nearest bus stop and caught the next bus home.

I wish to see her again tomorrow.

I g****e Sea View Apartments on my phone. Nothing substantial comes out. They have apartments of that name all across the country. In at least fifty cities. I shut the diary. I still don’t know which city this guy lived in. I get restless. The auto drops me off at my place and I can’t wait for night to fall so I can read the rest of the diary. It’s too early to tell Avantika anything about it. I don’t want to come across as a freak and I am a little scared how she will react to me reading someone else’s diary.

Avantika is sleeping. This night is slightly better than the past ones. I am in the balcony again, staring at wide open spaces. I clutch the diary. I am torn. Stories excite me, but stories that end too soon sadden me. I don’t want this

 to end. The diary I hold in my hand has a story with a lot of value to me. The guy who wrote this diary is dead. I could have been that guy. If I had written a diary and died in that blast, someone else would be reading it. Maybe him. And it would have killed me had he not read it. My last chance of reaching out to my loved ones would have gone waste.

So, in a twisted manner, that guy and I are connected. I am the last person to read what he last wrote. I am probably the only person who will ever read this diary. It’s a huge responsibility. I have survived and he has not. But he lives through the diary I hold. He lives through what he tells me in this diary.

Yes, we all snatch the diaries of our friends and browse through them, but this is different. This diary has the last words of a dead man. I open it again with trembling hands.

7 September 2010

‘I don’t think colours and hues make her look beautiful. It’s the other way around.’

I think she noticed me stare at her today. I had waited for her bus to stop outside our college. She wore green and fuchsia pink. And looked resplendent. She has made quite a few guy friends and I am jealous. While they sit near her, smile and laugh with her, all I can do is sit at a distance, alone, and stare at her. Today, I sat on a bench right next to her. Her voice is sweet. Like little birds chirping on a bright Sunday morning. Her shining eyes and honey-sweet voice are like windows to her pure, clean soul. Maybe I will talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she will chirp for me. Only for me. I can’t get my mind off her. Her face, her simplicity, her voice, her slender fingers, I just can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like I am possessed. I am hers. I wonder what she is doing now. Did she really catch me staring at her? Does she know I exist?

I wish to see her again tomorrow.

I finish reading the diary when it’s one in the night. I am wide awake and I notice that I have put bookmarks in a million different places. I can’t put in words how I feel about it. As I read the diary, it was as if I was the dead guy and Ragini was Avantika. It seemed like my diary and my story. I am enraged that I didn’t get to tell the girl I loved the most that I loved her and now I am dead. It’s frustrating and I am exasperated. It’s like a novel with no end. Or a movie without the climax scene. And it’s just grossly unfair. It feels like my own story has come to an abrupt end.

I have read the full diary, but still found no addresses, no numbers and no clues for me to know who the guy was. It’s infinitely irritating. I just have to know who he is and I will do anything for that. It’s my only chance at redemption, the only chance of helping one of the many people who died

 that morning. It’s my only chance to make those images in my head go away forever. I will not let this go. I will find an end to this diary. I have to.

I start reading the diary again—from start to finish—with higher concentration this time round. I don’t want to miss a single thing. This time, I start taking notes to find out who the guy was. Within an hour,