PART 1 #7
I was eighteen when I’d first met her in a resort in the Andamans where both of us were with our families on a holiday.
She was dating Vicky, who later turned out to be abusive and controlling, and I was dating Sameeksha, who judged rightly that I was a wayward guy with no plans for the future, no drive, and ghosted me.
But I remember the first time I saw Aanchal.
I was completely and utterly smitten. Her face was a work of art, pure perfection, I thought at the time.
Her face reminded me of an article I once read, which said the right ratios, angles and mathematics are what make beautiful people, beautiful.
I imagined her God and creator immersed in their art, carving out her bones, slicing her skin.
His palette crowded with bloody scalpels, torn veins, skin drafts; his mind obsessed dangerously with getting those ratios right to the point of madness.
Her face sliced and sewn to reach perfection.
I remember noticing that she was 5’6”, slender and had a heart-shaped face that ended in a sharp chin.
A slight shadow of acne on her face only heightened her beauty.
Her lips were full and chapped and every time I saw her, she had been making them worse by touching them.
I knew at that precise moment what this warm, gooey feeling in the pit of my stomach was.
This feeling of wanting to out-focus everything but that face.
I had a crush on her. Would I have stayed in touch after we left the resort if she didn’t have a boyfriend?
Absolutely. Later, fate put her in my path.
Had she not shown in my ‘People you might know’ on LinkedIn, I might even have forgotten her face.
That face never left my search history.
Little did I know that every time I typed ‘Aanchal Madan’ in the search bar of LinkedIn, I was falling in love with her. Four years later, we bumped into each other in Mumbai, fell in love properly, or whatever that was, and she broke my heart.
‘. . . and you trampled on all of it, Aanchal. Just like that,’ I say.
‘I needed to figure out what I wanted for myself.’
‘And how’s that self-discovery going?’
She leans forward and fixes her gaze on me. ‘Daksh, it was too much for me. I just wanted to be . . . free. I just wanted to be Aanchal for a while.’
I gather myself. I fortify my heart against any more pain that she can inflict.
And she can. Even after all these years, she can crush my heart just as easily.
Even now, with every passing moment, Aanchal becomes more radiant, a flower that keeps on fucking blossoming.
She’s only 5’6”, five inches shorter than me, and yet she commands the room, not I.
I turn to look at the policemen who are still snarling outside.
And why wouldn’t they? They want to be the protectors of the most beautiful girl they might have ever seen.
If I hadn’t been so insanely shallow and could have looked past her gorgeousness and straight at the blackness of her heart, I wouldn’t have found myself here.
‘You broke up, I respected that.’
She interrupts me. ‘You broke up, Daksh, I didn’t.’
I restrain myself because who broke up is pure semantics. It was all her doing.
‘Who took the decision was immaterial. You pushed me to do it. You think after what you did, how you did it, I would stay with you?’
She gives a mournful chuckle as if I had said something funny.
‘There was a difference between you and me, Daksh. I never promised you anything. That was all you. You always loved to say all those fancy things about forevers and sacrifices and whatnot. You used to say that you would be with me no matter what. You promised you would go to hell and back with me. I never even wanted to be in a relationship! But you said you would make everything all right. That you would hold my hand, guide me out of the sadness Vicky had left me in and whatever. That was all a big lie. So, if there’s one person to blame in all of this, it’s you, Daksh! ’
My blood pumps furiously at her accusation. She leans back in her chair. As if the executioner can be blamed for the crime. I might have ended the relationship, but she forced my hand. She made it impossible to be with her any more.
I concede. I raise my hands in mock surrender. ‘It’s me. I was the problem. Fine, I agree. Can we get over this charade of a conversation and get on with our lives?’
‘Our lives as in Amruta and her kids?’ she asks me. ‘Nice podcast by the way—’
I interrupt her. ‘I don’t want you in my life. I told you, no calls, no messages, nothing. I stuck to that. There’s nothing between us.’
Her calmness irritates me.
She says, ‘It doesn’t need to be this caustic. The least you could have done is pick up—’
‘We were over,’ I remind her. ‘What did you want me to say after picking up your calls? That I moved on? Of course I hadn’t moved on.’
For days after the break-up, she would call me at least once every day, ‘to talk’. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she wanted anything else but to lessen her own guilt. I blocked her wherever I could.
I continue, ‘Why would I lie just so you could be okay with your decision? You wanted to find yourself, no? Then go, fucking find yourself!’
Her eyes burn with disappointment. ‘This is who you are, Daksh. Not the one you pretended to be—the perfect, all-accepting, nice guy. You, too, made promises you couldn’t keep. What’s the difference between—’
‘Don’t compare me with Vicky.’
‘I didn’t want us to be anything!’ she exclaims. She bends forward and locks my gaze. ‘You told me you were different from him. But you lied.’
I have reached my breaking point with her. I get up.
‘I can’t waste any more time with you. I’m done. So now, show some grace for once, tell those policemen about the apology and let’s fuck off from each other’s lives. I have lived three years without you, what’s another thirty?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You were unfair then, you’re unfair now.’
I let the words wash over me. ‘Fine.’
But she continues with a disgusted look, ‘You make yourself out to be the victim, but I was the victim because you said you were in love, but you weren’t. I went through years of trauma with Vicky and you did the same to me.’
I don’t want to listen to her any more.
She continues, ‘You made me swear off love forever. Do you ever think about that?’
‘I was willing to do everything.’
She tosses her head back in frustration.
‘So generous, Daksh, so fucking generous. You were willing to do everything that was okay by you, not me. You wanted to be my knight in shining armour but I didn’t need all that.
I needed a guy who would love me the way he said he would.
So with all due respect, fuck off, Daksh.
You can leave. I will handle the police. ’
8.
Aanchal Madan
Up on the top floor of the Atlantis, Vanita and Aditya’s presidential suite is a chaos of colour and movement.
Vanita’s walk-in wardrobe has turned into a makeshift beauty salon, with a squad of people fussing over her hair, make-up and outfits, making Vanita look even more amazing, if that was possible.
But despite the whirlwind of activity around me, my mind rests with him.
The memories of Daksh’s betrayal flood my mind and overwhelm me.
Sometimes things so bad happen to you that once you heal, you wonder how you even bore the pain.
‘Oye?’ calls out Vanita.
‘Huh?’
‘Get your make-up done. Only fabulous people in my wedding video.’ She motions one of her girls towards my suitcase. ‘Hey, can you get her clothes out and iron them carefully?’
‘I will do it myself.’
‘No way,’ cuts in Vanita. ‘You have other duties. Call the in-room dining and order us some ice and set up the drinking station. I’m not reminding you again that it’s my wedding. And whatever your deal with Daksh is, it can wait till later,’ she says. ‘But on a side note, has he gotten hotter?’
‘Vanita—’
She swivels in her chair to look at me. ‘I’m just saying. He looked like one of those boys who grow into men and not uncles. Has that happened?’
I don’t dignify it with an answer. The answer is yes, the boy is now a man, and he’s infinitely hotter than I last saw him and I hate him for that.
Whatever little baby fat was there—there was very little—is gone and his face is all jawline, all structure.
His hair was cut short on the side, almost a buzz and a little longer on the top.
I know it because I loved his long floppy hair, but now I love this more.
It’s occurred to me I might even like a mohawk on him, so it’s immaterial.
His deep-set eyes are even more hypnotic, even more angry, even more kind, even more expressive.
It’s tiring to look at him, there’s so much going on, on his face.
So much emotion. So much beauty. So much history.
He was in a black polo T-shirt and black trousers that fit him snugly and was wearing white sneakers.
That’s what he wears these days. It is the attire of a coddled spoilt brat, perhaps, the kind that plays leisurely games of golf or indulges in extravagant brunches with his equally spoilt friends.
‘Did he apologize for what he did and ask you out again?’
‘He told me that he hates me and would like to keep it that way,’ I answer.
A girl named Parul makes me sit on the sofa and asks me to close my eyes. Then she opens her make-up kit and pumps foundation out on her palm.
‘And you? Do you still hate him?’ asks Vanita. ‘I need to know because I will behave with him accordingly.’
‘Please hate him.’
This question has haunted me for three long years. Every time I delve into my brief relationship with Daksh, I find a new answer. But as I continue to examine those forty-three days we spent together, two things become increasingly clear.