“Merry Christmas, you filthy animal. And a happy new year.” A machine gun let rip in the apartment, the bullets tearing up the sofa and destroying the Christmas tree.
Kalpana sat with her head resting on Gaurav’s chest, arms wrapped around him, her eyes partially glazed looking at the TV. Macaulay Kulkin’s startled face filled the screen. She turned to look at Gaurav.
“Remind me why we’re watching Home Alone?” she said with a dull gaze at him.
“Because we are home alone,” he said without looking away from the TV. “Besides, this is Home Alone: Lost in New York.”
“Same thing.”
Gaurav gasped theatrically. “You did not just say that.”
Kalpana smiled sleepily. “Yes I did.”
“Well, I’m glad I found out early that this relationship is based on lies and not caring for your partner’s sensitivities.”
“What would be left if we didn’t have that? Just your horrible, horrible puns.”
“The boyfriend continues to be silently maligned.”
Kalpana laughed and leaned over to kiss his cheek, then just looked at him.
Gaurav raised his eyebrows. “Well, when you put it like that, I daresay it’s almost worth it.”
“Almost, huh?” Kalpana said, getting up and going to the table. She poured herself a glass of water. “What would you do if I decided to just dump your ass one day?”
“Drown myself in an alcohol-filled pit of sadness and self-loathing until the darkness takes me,” he said, checking his phone.
“You’d do that over me?” she said, taking a sip. “I’m flattered.”
“Yes, but right now, I’ve got to get going,” he said, turning around. “I’m meeting Rohini for lunch.”
“And leaving me?” Kalpana’s tone was only half-joking.
Gaurav smirked. “Oh, shut up. I practically spend all day with you. It’s just lunch, Kalpu.”
“Where are you going?” she said. “Can I come, too?”
He gave her a tight smile. “I’d have asked you to join me, but I thought I’d hang out with just Rohini this time. She’s super pissed-off that I haven’t met her the whole of last week. Besides, I’ve spent all this time with you and no one else.”
“Yeah, but I’m your girlfriend.”
“And she’s been my friend for the past 10 years. I’ve known her a lot longer than I’ve known you.”
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” She didn’t bother concealing her shock at what he’d said.
“It means that I’d like to spend some time with my friends without you. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, Kalpana.”
For a few angry moments, Kalpana didn’t know if she should say what was on her mind. She hesitated, turning away and walking to the fridge. “It’s not just any friend, though, is it?” she said, as she searched the fridge. She wasn’t even hungry.
She heard him release a long, impatient breath. “Are we seriously having this conversation right now? It’s Rohini, for god’s sake. What’s wrong with you?”
Kalpana bit her lip, feeling a twinge of regret for saying what she did. But she didn’t want to back down.
“Fine. Why are you still standing there? Go.”
There was a long pause, and just so she wouldn’t have to stare blankly at the fridge for a whole minute, she got out a carton of juice and poured it in a glass.
Gaurav finally spoke. “Why don’t you ask Divya to bring Bharath guy with her every time you guys hang out? Tell me how that goes.”
He started toward the door, then stopped. “Oh, wait, never mind. That’s definitely a bad idea.” He snickered, slipping his shoes on and walking out the door.
*
Vimala stared at her computer, a blank white page displayed. The text cursor blinked desultorily, bored of waiting for words to form on the screen. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but the very thought of committing words to the page filled her with trepidation. Of course she could delete whatever she’d written, start afresh. But what if even that wasn’t good enough? What if she spent hours, days, one draft after another, and nothing worth a damn came of it?
She’d never felt this way before. This wasn’t writer’s block the way she knew it to be. Or maybe it was, she didn’t know anymore. But it felt different. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what she was supposed to write so much as it was…fear. Prakash had sent her script to more than a dozen production houses, almost 20, and he’d only gotten a reply from one. And Dion had been desperate.
She’d begun to wonder if there really wasn’t a difference between her and the writers who scripted those other shows. Those awful, hammy, senseless TV serials she’d been so disdainful of all her career—and yet she’d been part of several over the years, believing something better would happen if she just kept at it. If she could just graduate from the mediocrity of those shows, if she could just get her one big break…
A break she didn’t think she even deserved anymore. Vimala’s laptop screen remained blank, and—she despised the very thought—maybe it was better it stayed that way.
The doorbell rang. She sighed, staring wistfully at the empty screen, forcing herself to stand up. Opening the door, she found her eyes level with a man’s chest, wide-set shoulders blocking the entire doorway. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw who it was.
Kaanta pushed past her and entered the apartment. Behind him stood Rajanna, his face lit up in a broad, charming smile.
“May I?” he said.
Rajanna sat across from her on the sofa, regarding her curiously, almost with fascination. Vimala felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingling, her discomfort pitifully obvious to the gangster. She couldn’t make eye contact for longer than a couple of seconds. Rajanna turned to Kaanta, who was standing to his side.
“What are you, a waiter?” he said. “Sit down.” The hulking man sat down next to his boss.
“Look, Rajanna,” Vimala began with what little courage she had left, “I can explain it, okay? I spoke to them, and I told them everything you told me. I swear I did. You know I want this more than anyone. I—I went there and I talked and it just didn’t happen. It—it just…they refused to listen, Rajanna. You have to understand, I’ve never done this bef—“
“Oh my god, stop talking,” Rajanna said, looking at her as if she’d gone insane. Vimala’s heart was still thudding in her chest, and the blood was rushing so furiously in her temples she felt about to explode.
The don was still looking at incredulously. “I have no idea what the hell that was about, but anyway,” he shook his head, raising his eyebrows momentarily, “I’ve come to congratulate you on a job well done.”
That seemed to wake Vimala up from her haze of fear, and she looked at him in utter bemusement.
“What?”
“Surya called me yesterday. Told me about your meeting with them. He also told me how much he despises the idea of working with a criminal, but in the end, he’s agreed to sell me Dion.” He smiled. “Now how about that?”
The words struck Vimala like a bolt of lightning, and she almost thought she’d faint. She was hyperventilating as she looked at Rajanna, then Kaanta, then Rajanna again.
“Seriously?” she said, short of breath. “He said that? I mean, of course. He agreed to sell, of course. Yes. Yes! Thank god!”
Rajanna watched her with amusement the way someone would an excited child.
“Yes, well, that’s why I came here. You managed to do in a day what I haven’t been able to for more than a year. So I thank you for that. And in return, I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. You shall be paid the 1.3 lakhs in full.”
Vimala felt her eyes welling with tears. “Thank you. Oh my goodness, thank you, thank you! I don’t know what to say, I’m—I can’t believe this.”
“I must mention, though,” Rajanna said, leaning back against the sofa, “that Surya fellow, he’s a cocky bastard. Even now, after all that’s happened, he only agreed to sell to me if I accepted his condition.”
Vimala wiped her eyes. “Condition? What condition?”
“He said he’d only sell if you came aboard as creative talent. He was pretty adamant about it, too. You, not anyone else. You seem to have made quite the impression on him.” Rajanna smiled disingenuously.
Vimala felt as though the carpet had been swept out from under her, and beneath it there was no floor. There was nothing. She was falling, swallowed into some dark, endless abyss and the light she’d seen mere moments ago had been snatched away, growing smaller and smaller into a pinprick before disappearing entirely. She stared at Rajanna blankly, not quite registering what he’d just said to her.
“I know,” Rajanna said sympathetically. “It would mean working for a criminal, right?”
Vimala felt a sudden burst of anger, the image of her fists slamming into Surya’s face played in her head over and over again. That bastard. That fucking rat-bastard. That son of a bitch, I knew it! I should never have gone there, I should never have, never, never, never…
“But sometimes you just don’t have a choice, do you?” Rajanna’s voice sounded distant, and she couldn’t focus on him, as though he were speaking through hazy glass. “Sometimes, it’s pragmatic to work with the bad guy, at least for a while. It’s not every day you get a second chance.”
Those words came like a hammer blow, the air knocked straight out of Vimala’s lungs. She gazed at him for a few seconds, not quite understanding what she just heard. How much did Surya tell him? How is he saying all this?
It dawned on her with a measure of revulsion as she realised all he was doing was mirroring her own words back at her. Revulsion at her own self. She was a hypocrite for how she’d just felt. She’d kept trying to convince herself her position was different from Surya’s and Nandan’s. But was it, really? Driven to this state by sheer recklessness. There’s no one to blame but me, even though I’ve tried to pin it on everybody else. And now I’m being given an out. My second chance.
Her mind went to the faces of Sundar and Kalpana. I can’t face them any other way.
She composed herself silently, swallowing as she raised her eyes to his.
“What’s the job?”
*
Sundar stepped out of the car, absently pushing the door shut as he jogged across the parking lot and towards the entrance. An ambulance stood across from the main doorway of the building, the door closed shut. He knew they wouldn’t be in there, but he had to check. He peered inside through the small back windows. Empty. Exhaling deeply, he hastened inside the building.
The woman at the reception desk pointed him in the direction of the stairs. Room 101, first floor. The door was right beside the head of the stairs, but he didn’t go inside immediately. Sundar saw her through the long glass window set into the door, hunched over a woman prone on a hospital bed.
Sandhya was holding her mother’s hand, leaning in exhaustion against the chair handrests. Her hair was a mess, her clothes wrinkled — she looked bedraggled. A lump formed in Sundar’s throat. His eyes shifted to Anita, the IV bag hanging from the pole. She seemed to be mumbling something unintelligibly, though he couldn’t tell if she was actually saying anything. Her lined, worn face bore a striking resemblance to Sandhya. It was as though she’d aged in a matter of seconds, suddenly beleaguered by burdens no 20 year old girl would have. Sundar’s mouth grew dry, sandy, and he silently begged for none of what he was seeing to be real.
His hand rested on the metal plate on the door to push it open, but he hesitated. The sight in that room had shaken him deeply, left him feeling bare and disillusioned. It had been wrong, what he’d done—that he knew. But that it would have consequences like this… His stomach roiled. He’d been the cause of this. The blame wasn’t solely his, but what did that matter? He’d been complicit in this, and that’s all that mattered.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, suppressing the trepidation rising in him. Sandhya’s head snapped around to look at him, and his breath caught in his throat. She had stitches on her cheek, her chin, her eyes were ringed darkly with exhaustion and sleeplessness. The knot in his gut tightened.
Anita seemed to be stirring, eyes fluttering open as though she were emerging from a stupor. Sandhya’s eyes widened, and she gently slipped her hand out of her mother’s, bending forward to whisper softly in her ear. She smoothed Anita’s forehead, speaking reassuringly in hushed tones. Her mother’s eyes were still open a crack, and Sundar felt she was looking at him, a million bitter thoughts that showed themselves in just one weary gaze.
Sandhya quickly stood and padded toward him, putting on her slippers as she took him by the arm and pulled the door open. They went to one side so Anita wouldn’t see them through the window.
“How is she?” Sundar asked.
“She’s…fine, resting” Sandhya said, her eyes meeting his for only a moment before moving away. “The doctors say she’ll get better with time. But now she remembers everything.”
“You mean the accident?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why it happened. No one knows what triggered it. The doctors have their theories, but nobody’s convinced.”
Sundar paused, trying to process the damage to her beautiful face, the fatigue that clung to it like a damp veil. Even now she was beautiful, he wanted to kiss her, and he hated himself for feeling that way.
“What happened, Sandhya?” he said. “How did this happen to your face?”
Sandhya took a shaky breath. She felt like she was 16 again. The hospital, the panic attack, the utter and complete helplessness in the face of something she had absolutely no control over. There was only Sundar.
She moved to hug, to hold him close to herself, but he moved back a step, stopping her arms.
“Not here, Sandhya, we’re in public,” he whispered. He nodded to the exit. “Let’s go outside for a bit.”
The sun felt good on her face after so long in the suffocating confines of the hospital. She chewed slowly on the kaati roll Sundar had bought her at the hospital café. They’d walked all the way to his car in the lot.
“So,” he said, leaning against the vehicle, “what happened? Take your time, I don’t want to rush you.”
Sandhya smiled cynically, looking away as she took another bite of food.
“Why do you even want to know?” she said.
Sundar frowned. “What are you talking about? Your mother’s in the hospital and you have stitches all over your face. Why wouldn’t I want to know?”
“Because clearly what we have isn’t as important to you as saving your own ass in front of people. You’re just asking me this because you want to know if you’ve been implicated in any of this.”
“Sandhya, that’s not what I’m doing. Please, don’t say things like that.”
She rounded on him like a wildcat.“Then why didn’t you hug me in there? So what if we were in public? How long are you going to keep me a secret?”
Sundar stared at her, dumbstruck. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Sandhya, I’m a married man. I have a wife and a child. You’re my student, and my half my age, no less. How could I possibly make this affair public? It would ruin everything in my life.”
“An affair? That’s all this is? Just some fucking fling you decided to have because you were bored sick of your wife?”
“Do not speak about my wife that way!” he said, seething. Sandhya stepped back in sudden fright at his outburst.
“You forced me into this, don’t you remember? By extorting me? I don’t know where you thought this relationship was going, Sandhya, but I certainly will not legitimise it. We both enjoyed it, and we both had fun, and that was it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I love my wife and always will love her, and I feel incredibly shitty having done what I did to her.”
Sandhya’s lips were quivering, and she looked at him in disbelief, a helpless child. Her eyes were glistening with tears, and her voice came out hoarse and barely audible.
“Sundar…what are you saying? What are you saying?”
It broke Sundar’s heart to see her like that, it tore him up from within. Why am I saying these things to her? Why am I being so cruel? What is wrong with me?
He swallowed, balled his fists, but it didn’t stop the tears from flowing down his face. He had to force himself to be composed, to speak so his voice didn’t break.
“Sandhya. I was going to tell you this later after I heard your mother was in the hospital. But I don’t think I can bring myself to say this if I don’t say it now. We can’t be together anymore, Sandhya. I’m sorry it had to be this way. But my family means too much to me, and it’s only going to destroy your life if we keep this up. I’m so sorry it had to end like this. I’m…I’m just…sorry.”
As he’d spoken, her expression had changed, morphing before him from hurt to utter devastation. She stared desolately at him, the roll slipping from her hand, falling to the ground in a mess. Sandhya didn’t utter a word, she just pushed her hands against the sides of her head, clasping her hair as she dropped to the ground in front of him. Sundar could hear her panicked breathing coming in gasps. His eyes misty with tears, barely able to see, he turned away from her and got inside his car.
He drove out of the parking lot, leaving her there all alone, cradling herself on the hard concrete floor.
*
“You’re coming home? Now?”
Vimala paced around the living room, biting her lip.
“Yeah, are you busy or something?” said the voice over the phone.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” Vimala paused a moment, silently cursing. “The house is in a real mess right now. Both Sundar and I have been really swamped these past few weeks, and Kalpana’s exams are coming up, too.”
“Let me help you clean up, then,” the voice said. There was a pause, the voice softened. “Come on, Vimala, we’ve barely seen each other in months. And how often do I get time off duty like this?”
Vimala hesitated for few seconds, then sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve missed you. Come over, I’ll get some tea ready.”
“Tea? Jesus, Vimala, I’m not diabetic just yet.”
Vimala snickered. “I think I have rosé lying around here somewhere.”
“Yeah. Better. I mean, it’s still a little lame, but I’ll take it. See you in half an hour.”
Vimala had dusted off the bottle of wine and picked two wine glasses off a shelf, bringing them to the sink. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Sundar had had a drink together, just the two of them. It’s not as though they lacked for time. Or opportunity. The water gushed into the glasses, and she found herself staring at the way it flowed along one side and fell in frothing waves from the other. Then she shut off the tap.
He never seemed interested. Perhaps she should have asked him. She couldn’t read his mind, after all. For all she knew, he was thinking the same thing about her. It would hilariously stupid if that’s what was happening. Vimala wiped the wine glasses with a cloth. She decided she was going to ask him that night. In that moment she had a thought that deeply unsettled her. Am I actually afraid of what my own husband’s going to say to that?
The bell rang as she set the glasses down, and Vimala opened it.
“Hi!” Poorna said, almost falling into Vimala’s arms as she hugged her. “Oh my god, it’s been too long, Vimala.”
They went over to living room, and Poorna dropped her purse on a sofa.
“So how’ve you been?” she said. “How’s work going, man? I want to know everything that’s happening with you.” She stretched, and for a brief moment Vimala found herself vaguely transfixed on Poorna’s lithe, athletic figure.
“Oh,” Vimala said, going blank for a brief moment, “uh, well, it’s not exactly been the best past few weeks, to be honest.” Her lips stretched in a wan smile.
Poorna frowned. “Hey, what happened? Is everything okay?”
Vimala nodded towards the kitchen. “How about we pop open that wine bottle you were talking about?”
Vimala was holding the wine glass by the stem, swirling it absently.
“Why would they do that?” Poorna said, folding one leg under her thigh as she sat forward on the sofa.
She shrugged. “I mean, I guess it makes sense. The serial was losing ratings really fast. People were scrambling to do everything they could to salvage it, but I think after a while they all just kind of threw their hands up and said, ‘fuck it’.”
“And fire you?” Poorna said in disbelief. “Vimala, that’s just insane.”
“Well, I was the lead writer, after all,” she said. “I was responsible for the whole thing, at least in part.”
“Oh, come on, who made the show so popular in the first place?” her friend said.
“Me, but—“
“Exactly! They couldn’t give you a second chance? What assholes!”
Vimala shook her head, sighing. “Well, that’s how they roll. Besides, we’d been having creative differences for years. I think they finally decided I wasn’t worth the effort.”
Poorna clicked her tongue disappointedly. “So what are you doing now? Have you been looking around?”
“Yeah, of course,” Vimala said, not meeting her eye. “All the time. I’ve applied to a bunch of studios, big and small ones. I haven’t stopped writing, of course—I’d never do that—and I’m hoping maybe one of my scripts might get picked up. But for now…yeah, still looking.” She nodded, forcing a smile.
“Ohh, Vimala…” Poorna said with a sympathetic look. She set her glass down, opened her arms. “Come here, you need a hug.”
Poorna wrapped her arms around Vimala as she chuckled dryly.
They separated, and Vimala studied Poorna for a few moments as the woman took another sip of wine.
“How’s the life of crime-fighting treating you, Inspector?” she said with smile.
Poorna snorted. “Well enough, I suppose. The bloody DCP’s moved like a third of my team into narcotics. He doesn’t even listen, Vimala. Look, I get it, we’re having drug problems, and yeah, I guess they need more men to handle it. But that doesn’t mean you bleed the other divisions dry. Most drug dealers are small-timers who don’t know the first thing about covering their tracks. You should see them in their shithole apartments, it’s really fucking pathetic. You don’t need guys with much experience to handle that surface-level stuff.”
“Wait, which division are you the head of again?” Vimala said.
“Organised crime. Sand mafia, land mafia. All those guys.”
Vimala’s stomach shrank to the size of a pea. “Land mafia?”
“Yeah,” Poorna said, sipping some wine. She shook her head. “Those guys are insane, Vimala. A real nasty business.”
Vimala gripped the stem of her glass so tightly she was sure it would break. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t really tell you specifics, of course, but you know how the sand mafia control the supply of sand we use to make cement? They have a chokehold on the construction business. They’re usually working with construction companies and local politicians. But the land mafia are the ones acquiring the land, and they make deals with people way higher up the ladder. You’d never again set foot in a mall if you knew what it took to get it built.”
Vimala was silent for a time, not quite meeting her eyes, not quite looking away.
“Damn,” she whispered. “And you go after these guys?”
“It’s nearly impossible to topple a mafia don,” Poorna said, leaning back in the sofa, “but for what it’s worth, yeah. Those are the guys I go after.” She smiled. “Why? Someone in the mafia you can tell me about?”
Vimala’s gaze was distant as she spoke, but snapped back to the present. Swallowed. She turned to Poorna with a dry smile.
“Me? Of course. I’ll let you know when they come knocking at my door.”
Oxfords, Not Blogs 
