PART 2 #10
I know it wasn’t his plan though he makes it sound like it was. It’s just the way he is. Putting others before himself. Except for that one time. I climb on to the bike and he tells me to hold on.
‘The bike looks light but has significant power,’ he warns me.
He’s right. It takes me by surprise. I flap around for some handle behind me.
Failing to find any, I put my hands around him, clasping lightly at first and then tightly.
He zips around the city as if he’s familiar with both the roads and the bike.
We drive for thirty minutes before he spots a coconut stand and stops.
‘Remember this?’
‘How can I forget?’ I tell him.
Our first real conversation happened over complimentary coconuts on an Andaman beach. We buy two and sip them slowly. The heat’s beating down now. Tiny rivulets of sweat snake down my neck.
‘Is this what you want now?’ he asks me.
‘I think so, but I find it hard to trust myself. I want to know what else is there to do. Being in love, having a person to experience things with, seem important.’
He takes a long sip from his coconut. The more time I spend being with him, the clearer it becomes what a part of me wants out of him.
I want him to tell me that I’m making a big mistake.
I want him to shake me out of my stupor and command me to not go ahead with Saket, not to make a sensible decision, but to make a rash one.
I want him to confess that his relationship with Amruta is not what he thought it would be, and make a stupid ask again.
I want him to come back to me. It’s been two years that my mind has tortured me with this exact scenario.
He and I, talking, the talk of the future in the air, and finally ending with him confessing that he has been thinking about me too, about what could have been, what we left behind.
I watch him intently. His eyes are glassed over.
I wish I could pry open his brain and know what he’s thinking.
Even better, manipulate what he’s thinking. I wish I could do that.
‘This bike ride to the Buddha is the longest time I have spent with myself in the past, I don’t know, ten years.’
‘There’s a sense of peace there,’ I agree.
He shakes his head as if still trying to make sense of what he’s feeling.
When you talk to Daksh, his eyes are always on you, listening intently.
You’re his hero and he always appears invested in every word you say.
This is the first time I have seen him distracted.
Or even allowing his story to take centre stage.
‘Not just that, Aanchal. I was alone, like literally just me. That has never happened ever. I have always been surrounded by people, things to do, stuff I fill my life with,’ he mumbles. ‘It was nice. I never thought I would say that.’
‘I never thought you would say that either.’
His voice trails. ‘You remember Jagath and Zeenath, right?’
I do.
He continues as if talking to himself. His eyes flit to the rental bike parked on the curb, ‘They both ride now. They have tried to sell me the concept of long-range rides for quite some time now. My back’s fucked, that’s true, but there’s fun to be had.’
‘Did you like the ride or being alone?’
‘Both.’
His voice trails. He’s right about what he was saying earlier.
He’s the one who wants to be alone. He has always found his tribe, and people to surround himself with.
This is the old Daksh, the Daksh who fell in love with me and promised me the world.
He’s someone else now. Just like I’m someone else.
‘Anyway,’ he breaks out of his train of thought. ‘I’m happy for you.’
‘Happy for what?’
‘That you have figured out what you want,’ he tells me.
‘Something that you figured out way before I did.’
‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that,’ he says. ‘Like I said, I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time I would be wrong.’
He throws the coconut into the garbage bin. He gestures to ask me if I’m done. I nod and he takes it from me and throws it, too.
‘You didn’t tell me when you are getting married to Amruta.’
He hands over the helmet to me. ‘I need to figure some things out first.’
‘About the two of you?’
He shakes his head.
‘About myself,’ he says and gets on to the bike.
12.
Daksh Dey
‘Aren’t you doing that a little too much?’ asks Amruta, as I rev the bike through the quieter streets of Phuket towards the infamous, or famous, depending on how you look at it, Bangla Road.
I have changed the bike to the BMW F850 GS. It’s wholly unnecessary, the security deposit on this thing was crazy, and a small voice in my head is calling out the mid-life crisis, but I’m shutting it out for now. All that matters right now is the power and the torque I’m getting from this thing.
We know we are close when the sounds of nightlife begin to seep through the air—a mix of thumping bass, periodic whoo-hoos and lively chatter.
I park the bike in a designated area already teeming with an array of scooters and motorcycles.
‘Why are you looking at the bike like that? It’s not yours,’ says Amruta.
‘It’s a mixed feeling of exhilaration and disgust. I can’t get over that I like to ride a bike. So basic, yaar.’
‘Next thing I know you will be ripping off exhaust pipes and changing your DP to Virat Kohli’s.’
‘I can almost hear Jagath and Zeenath snigger.’
‘Wait a couple of years and you will like running too,’ says Amruta.
She reaches out for my hand, and I wrap my fingers around hers.
Just as we enter the street, a mix of aromas hits me—grilled seafood, frying garlic and some smells of lightly fried sea creatures I recognize from their squishy parts.
We walk some more, and the environment transforms dramatically.
Neon lights blaze against the night. Signs and screens vie for attention with bright, bold letters.
The street teems with tourists like us. Music spills out from the clubs and bars, and people stumble out in different states of drunkenness.
Amruta tugs my hand, pulling us towards a street vendor where skewers of meat and seafood are being grilled to perfection. We hedge our bets and opt for a mix.
‘Will you get irritated if I ask you if it was fun to catch up with her?’ asks Amruta, out of the blue.
I shrug. ‘It was normal.’
‘Are you sure?’
I can sense the insecurity in her voice. It splinters my heart a little because I have never seen her like this. ‘It felt like nothing.’
‘I’m not a child, I can take it.’
Little sentences can lodge in one’s mind and slowly corrode it. I weigh my words carefully. I can’t be cavalier about this. I rehearse the words in my head.
‘Not nothing,’ I correct myself. ‘There’s a feeling of loss when I look at her. Of what could have been.’
We pay the vendor and slowly walk to a nearby makeshift bar where buckets of cocktails are the main attraction. We pick a bucket filled with Thai rum and passionfruit juice.
She responds as carefully as I had. ‘Why can’t that future be built now? Why not give her another chance?’
There’s no envy in her voice, just curiosity.
‘I have changed, she has changed,’ I say. ‘We are now like the Ship of Theseus. Little by little, I have become a different person. So has she. She’s not the person I had dated, and I’m not the person she had. Everything about us is different.’
‘And you think the new person she has become, you won’t like it?’
‘I have no interest in knowing her any more,’ I say. ‘I think I’m done. And you and I both know that to build a future together, you need a lot more than like.’
The words come with a ferocity I hadn’t expected. I really feel done.
I continued, ‘Had you asked me the same question in the minivan, I would have lied. Probably. But I’m not lying now.
I’m happy for her. That guy, Saket, seems to be a good fit for her.
And she seems motivated to make it work.
That’s all you need. Love’s enthusiasm, but being in love, it’s a skill.
You have to get up and be intentional. You have to decide to be in love every day. ’
‘Do you think we are skilful?’
‘Absolutely. There’s no one better than us.’
She nods and stares at her drink. She looks up and asks, ‘Then why are we not getting married?’
I look at her, trying to see if this was an accusation.
Before I can answer, she says, ‘Of course, I’m not putting this on you. This is a question for us.’
‘This morning, I had taken the motorcycle out before you woke up. To get some clarity—’
She interrupts me with a shake of her head. ‘Don’t start becoming that annoying person who finds answers in long bike rides.’
I chuckled though there’s a chance I might become just that. ‘Fine, I won’t . . . it’s just that we can’t afford to make a mistake now.’
I put my arm around her and she slips easily on to me. I tell her, ‘This is it. This is our last chance. Even if you forget the number of lives that will be affected because we decide to do something, it’s probably the biggest decision.’
She looks at me, her eyes wide as if searching for confirmation, and says, ‘So it’s okay to be unsure, right?’
‘It’s the most natural thing in the world.’
‘Do you want to drink some more?’ I ask her.
Beaming widely, she says, ‘What else is there to do?’
We get a few more drinks and half-stumble, half-walk through the more notorious parts of Bangla Road where neon signs advertise cabaret shows and more risqué performances.
‘Don’t lie that you don’t want to go to one of them and get a lap dance or something,’ she nudges me.
‘We will keep that for the hotel room,’ I reply.
We walk away from there and towards a club where a band plays energetically on a small stage.
Amruta, too drunk and never one to shy away from the dance floor, pulls me into the rhythm.
I fake-resist, then give in. Together, we lose ourselves in the music, the vibe and the rum that courses through our veins.