A darker shade of green
She walked down the all too familiar uneven footpaths of Khan Market. The bright-lit store windows with their displays of phantasmagoria didn’t make much of a dent on her jaded eyes. She sighed silently and continued to walk towards the cafe. Just then something in one particular store caught her eye. The tee said, ‘I started an origami business, but pretty soon my company folded up.’ Her smirk slowly turned into a full blown grin. “Priceless” she commented, reminded of something that happened between Armaan and her couple of years ago. Things had been much different back then, and it hadn’t seemed as amusing at the time. She quickly hopped into the store to make the quick buy.
The first time she had seen the tee was in Armaan’s closet, two years ago. Tucked in towards the back, it was kept neatly folded along with a Livestrong bracelet and a comb. “An odd assortment of stuff” she thought, “too odd for a surprise gift.” Plus, Armaan never gave surprises. She pulled it out and slowly brought the tee up to her nose: Obsession by Calvin Klein. She panicked.
That evening when she heard the key in the door, she did not know whether she felt relief or more tension. She rushed to the door and as he entered. He saw her, “What the f…Wow! Hey nice surprise!” he exclaimed. He only noticed her tears as she was throwing a cushion at him and she then collapsed to the floor.
Armaan and Maya had met in the pool. He was floundering his way through a breaststroke when he crashed into her. Apologies were followed by coffee the next week, and sex the following month. She moved in to his apartment on his birthday, the 26th of June, wrapped in just a ribbon. She was kinky that way. Exactly five months later, she took the morning flight to Bombay. As Armaan dropped her off at the airport, she rushed to the departure gate; she turned, blew him a kiss and shouted him, “Don’t wait up!”
He hadn’t. He had tried valiantly but failed as he lay sprawled on the sofa with the end credits of the late night movie rolling. When he opened his eyes next, it was to the sound of the Jurassic Park soundtrack. The T-Rex had just gorged on the guy off the toilet. “Eeyuck!” he exclaimed as he rolled off the sofa and punched the remote to change to the Breakfast News. His jaw dropped and he ran to his phone.
He never could make the call he wanted. The handset at the other end had a bullet hole in the middle of the screen. The same bullet had punctured Maya’s liver and three others were lodged in her heart. She had died instantly, slumped over her plate of roast chicken at the Shamiana, Taj Mahal Palace and Tower.
Armaan had grieved for over a year. His friends had tried to help him “get over her”. But he didn’t want to. To forget her seemed like a betrayal to him. A couple of years later he met Tarini on a flight from Bangalore. He was doing the crossword and she inadvertently blurted out the word to five-across. This time she bought him the coffee. But three months later she surprised him with a cushion to his face as soon as he came home.
That night Tarini could not comprehend why he hadn’t told her about Maya. She could only see his lips move as he tried to tell her the story, none of the words made any sense to her. Rage seethed in her eyes as she picked up the bottle of Gledfiddich from the bar. She emptied it right between where the ‘Origami’ and ‘Fold’ were, and lit her Zippo over the offending items.
At first he was shocked, then speechless, followed by resignation and finally acceptance. After the major jolt of losing Maya in the 26/11 attack, he began to learn to put things behind him and move on. He and Tarini had since resolved to not talk about the incident. He mopped up the mess and she replaced the whiskey. Chapter closed, they even set a wedding date.
At Khan Market Tarini swung her bags by her side as she swept into the Latitude cafe. Armaan had been waiting a while, sipping his Sencha green tea. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you since forever. We’ll be late for dinner. We have reservations you know!!” he exclaimed animatedly feigning his anger. “Sorry, was walking down from Anokhi and then I just got lost in thought!” “And you lost your way here? It’s a just a straight walk! Y’know what, you’re just plain weird!” he said as he smiled at her. Her kookiness was what endeared her to him even more. She whipped out the tee and smiled at him with the silly grin that only people in love can have, “What’s really weird sweetie, is that I was jealous of someone who was dead.”
