6. The Loser and The Lost

Ansh and the Other One.

Ansh thoughtfully scratched his nose with the wrong end of the paint brush as he stared at the crib constructed by the hotel staff. It was a decent enough model of the nativity scene but the wall behind it looked plain and bare. When Ansh had offered to paint something on it, the manager had been more than willing to hand him a paintbrush and some colors.

After giving the wall a wash of a dark blue color he proceeded to highlight some clouds. What else? Maybe some stars…of course to guide the three wise men – their very ancient but effective global positioning system that would lead them to the son of God on Christmas day. A few final touches to an impossibly bright star and Ansh stood back to admire his handiwork. Not bad, he thought smiling. Painting and sketching always helped him improve his mood.

Rubbing the paint off his hands, Ansh wondered when the last time he had painted anything was. Was it last week? Yes, he had painted – Divya’s eyes. And he had gifted it to her.

Ansh controlled the urge to smash a few paint bottles against the wall. He wondered if Vinay could paint…but then again, Vinay could probably do a thousand more interesting things.  Who cared a damn about art and creativity and all that crap as Divya had so rightly said during their last conversation…

“That’s beautiful, bro…”

He turned. Ashi smiled at him, a sincere honest smile. And in her eyes he saw neither pity nor sympathy, but genuine admiration.

“Ashi…I’m sorry if I’ve behaved like an ass…”

“It’s ok…you can’t help it, that’s how you are. I understand.”

Ansh’s arm moved faster than Ashi could react and left her with a streak of white paint on her face.  Ashi screamed and punched him on his chest. Ansh realized too late that he couldn’t run with his lame foot. But then again, he didn’t want to.

 

The manager cleared his throat and smiled at his audience. Ansh yawned. It was lunch time and all the guests had accumulated in the dining hall. The manager began by explaining in a slow droning voice about how a small landslide had occurred in the morning, as if anybody had failed to notice the rumble of the stones crashing down the hillside a few hours ago. The manager assured them that it was a common enough occurrence and they shouldn’t let it spoil their vacation. A couple of days and the road would definitely clear. Another smile and he encouraged his audience to ‘dig into’ the food which was now being served.

Ansh suspiciously examined the Chef’s special of the day. It looked like an unholy mishmash of varied sauces and melted cheese with some sort of chips thrown in to add to the confusion. A small board near the dish proclaimed it to be ‘Alfredo Corn Nachos’. A tall foreigner with shocking yellow hair walked up to the table and sampled one of the chips. The manager who was hovering nearby instantly appeared at his elbow.

“Everything to your satisfaction, sir?”

The blond foreigner smiled and held up one of the chips. “If this is a Nacho, then I’m the prince of Wales.” He smiled at Ansh and walked away, leaving the manager with his plastic smile still stuck on his face. And Ansh, who had often been accused of possessing an overactive imagination, could have sworn that he detected a hint of contempt in the unsmiling eyes of the manager.

Ansh gazed around the dining hall, examining his fellow guests. Of course, the hall was nearly half full of his family members spread out onto various tables.  Then there was the foreigner who seemed to have arrived that morning. Behind him - in the far corner of the room - sat two men deep in discussion with each other. The table beside the door was occupied by the couple – the young man and his wife (fiancé?). And approaching their table with slow determined steps was…Ashi.

He watched with detached amusement as Ashi smartly tapped her knuckles on the table.  Ansh saw her lips move but was too far away to catch her words. The young man appeared too stunned to reply for a few moments and then launched forth into a lecture of his own.  As Ashi stood there, hands on defiant hips, Ansh realized just how beautiful his sister was and how plain the young man’s fiancé (wife?) looked before her. Overactive imagination once again at work, he could almost detect waves of irritation emanating from the young woman as she resolutely looked the other way while her husband (would-be-husband? what the hell, he would have to confirm with Ashi) chatted on with Ashi. This went on for a while, at the end of which, Ashi walked away in a manner that could only be described as ‘in a huff’ and Ansh expected no less.

The blond foreigner also appeared to have followed this verbal duel with interest. Behind him, the two men who were so actively discussing something had now fallen silent and almost appeared oblivious of each other’s presence. Prolonged inspection revealed that  ‘boys’ would be a better suited term for them; they almost appeared to be of the same age as Ansh. One was rather tall and lanky while the other had a more stocky build. The taller one was slumped in his chair with his eyes shut; his lips moving soundlessly as he mouthed some words. His partner had a dreamy faraway look in his eyes as he studied the ceiling with startling intensity. And yet as Ansh got up and walked towards the door, he had an unnerving sensation of being followed by two pairs of eyes. He turned around and found the two partners to be in the same position as before, eyes shut and eyes turned towards the ceiling, but a ghost of a smile playing on their lips.

 

Ansh sat on the bank of the pond and gazed at the reflection of the setting sun in the lake. The water was now rippling as it should. As he slowly massaged his foot while his mind drifted away to an evening very like this one, nearly a year ago…

Ashi had approached him that evening and asked him to get out of Divya’s shadow. She had pleaded with him and begged him to understand her viewpoint. She knew that Divya would never be able to appreciate his sensitivity and if things went wrong, he would be the worst affected. She knew her brother deserved something better. Ansh had quietly listened to her. In the end, the only thing he had said was, “Get a boyfriend, sis. Maybe that will get you off my back.” And Ashi had never discussed about Divya with him again.

Ansh chucked a flat pebble into the pond and watched as it bounced a couple of times before sinking below the surface. Divya was never the one. He would have liked to convince himself that he hadn’t known which way their relationship was heading. After all, for the past one year, he had ignored the subtle hints and indications that he was losing Divya to this wonderful dude called Vinay, he had ignored his instincts which told him that he was heading towards a dead-end, he had ignored his sister who wanted him to stop being so ignorant. But now he could ignore no longer. He accepted the reality and let the pain wash over him, a white pain that benumbed his emotions. And yet even the pain could not completely block out his memories of Divya…

The water had stopped rippling.

Ansh snapped out of his thoughts and stared at the surface of the pond. It was impossibly still. He thought of calling out to Ashi but changed his mind and crawled to the edge of the pond. He leaned forwards, balancing his body on his hands and gazed at his reflection in the flat mirror like surface of the water.

 

And that was the point when two realities met through an unreal medium.

 

A sudden wave of ripples distorted his image in the water making his face indistinguishable.

 

She leaned into the pond; what would she see? The water had stopped rippling; the ghosts would now trouble her…

 

The water settled. Instead of his own reflection, he saw Divya’s face in the water...

 

She saw the one face she had being waiting to see. She almost cried out in relief…

 

Divya’s face? No, it was her face and yet not quite. It was the face of all that he had loved in Divya. The innocence of her eyes, the firmness of her lips, the graceful curve of her jaw, the point of her little angry nose…they were all somehow exaggerated by Ansh’s perception of her qualities. He was looking at a face that was not Divya but was what he had always wanted to see in her. He stared mesmerized at the eyes which had been gazing at him. The eyes blinked…

 

She blinked. She was confused. Was it him? She could not be sure and yet she saw the love in his eyes…

 

Divya’s face stared at him. Her lips moved, from nowhere came the voice of a little girl.

“Papa?” said the face.

Ansh nearly fell into the pond.

4. The Other Half

Ashi and the other one.

Ashi stared at the sleeping form of Ansh, her twin brother, and felt a sudden rush of affection. He had steadily ignored her since yesterday and even avoided making eye contact. He was definitely hiding something. And knowing Ansh’s attitude of sharing every joy and secretly suffering every pain, it was more than likely that he was having problems with Divya.

Ashi had noticed Ansh’s muddy footprints in the morning and correctly guessed that he had probably gone out during the night. But she would not press him.

Presently, Ansh was stirring. He opened his eyes and pushing himself up to his elbows, groggily stared at Ashi. Suddenly he threw his blanket aside and started flinging pillows and bed sheets everywhere.

He turned to her and growled ,”Where is it?”

Ashi raised an eyebrow. “Good morning dear brother.”

Ansh’s eyes widened. “Where is my cell phone…?”

Realization hit. The pitch of his voice escalated a couple of octaves. “Oh ff….” their mother entered the room “…ffffish!” he ended lamely. Their mother glared at him reprovingly. Ashi giggled.

He stared at Ashi wide eyed. “I threw my cell phone into the pond last night.”

Ashi stared back. “Congratulations bro, your stupidity seems to have reached new heights.”

“No seriously, I did.”

“Okay, so you did it. Why? Momentary insanity or a display of your pseudo-defensive tendency to constantly re-assert yourself in the greater scheme of the universal mish-mash?”

“My pseudo-what?”

“Oh never mind…why did you throw your cell phone into the pond?”

“To kind of get back at Divya…by the way she dumped me for another guy. Some dude called Vinay…”

“So your girlfriend leaves you for another handsome guy…”

“He’s not handsome, he has a face like a Hippo’s backside…”

“Okay your girlfriend dumps you for another guy who resembles a Hippo’s arse and you get back at her by throwing your cell into a pond. Man, I can really visualize her losing sleep over that.”

“Look, can we leave the sarcasm for until after tea? I’m really not in the mood for long explanations.”

“Sure bro, now go brush your teeth before I faint. One last question…why are you desperate for your cell now.”

“My cell contains all the passwords for my college project files…”

“And no doubt, they are all complicated passwords with no back up anywhere, right?”

“Right. But the cell didn’t fall into the lake. I can’t be sure but I think the cell hit somebody near the bank of the pond.”

“Great, let’s have tea then we’ll go hunting for people with cell phone sized bruises on their selves. And let me massage your foot now.”

For the first time since he had reached the hotel, Ansh smiled.

 

Ashi, looking at Ansh hobbling around the bank of the pond with his head bent, suddenly felt very happy. This was immediately followed by pangs of guilt.

For more than a year, Ansh had been involved with Divya. Ashi was happy for him but somehow he had moved away from his own twin sister. How she had missed those pillow fights, those conspiracies against stupid relatives, those long nights when they slept on the terrace and bitched about every person on the planet…the list was endless. And then after Divya came into his life, Ashi watched with growing apprehension as her once playful and lovable brother slowly lost his good humor, became a spoilsport, a party-pooper, the black sheep in the family who was branded as an incurable good-for-nothing. During the past one year, whenever she had looked into Ansh’s eyes, beyond the defiant expression she could see a plea for help, for release from his self inflicted punishment…a desperate cry to his twin sister who was barely two minutes older to him and yet much more matured…

And now she had him back to herself. She knew she was being very selfish but he definitely looked much happier now and that gave her a greater satisfaction than anything else.

Presently Ansh walked to where she was sitting and shook his head.

“Can’t find it anywhere…”

“Are you sure it didn’t fall in the water?”

Ansh turned towards the pond and shook his head again. “It was quite silent and lonely last night, I would have heard a splash. Instead I heard a scream…”

His voice trailed off. He stared at the water for a moment. “That’s strange, the water is rippling.”

Ashi got up and stood near him. “There’s nothing strange in that, a kind of small waterfall empties into this lake from near that cliff over there. Do you expect the water to remain still?”

Ansh turned towards her. “But it was perfectly still last night. I remember that apart from occasional ripples due to air currents, the water was completely still.” He turned back to the pond. “But that can’t be right, can it?”

Silence prevailed for a few minutes as the twins stood and watched the rippling surface of the pond. Then Ansh, with his unnerving ability of popping up with the most random question, asked “So, do you fancy that guy or what?”

Ashi became alert. “Which guy?”

Ansh grinned his trademark grin which sometimes made Ashi want to choke him. “That guy you were staring at during breakfast. Nice looking bloke. I think he’s married.”

*****

 

The little girl sat on a small rock near the bank and began to weep. It was neither day nor night. Time was immaterial. A wind blew but it did not rustle the leaves nor disturbed the dust. The world was unchanging except for the pond. The pond had now stopped rippling and that is why the girl was weeping.

For years she had sat on the same rock and waited for her papa. Had she waited for years? Decades? Centuries? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She only wanted to see her papa again. She knew that she had to wait near the pond, her world did not exist beyond it. Even her papa was trapped near the pond. And yet they were so far away.

The water had stopped rippling. This meant that she would once again start seeing the ghosts. Sometimes she saw her papa but that was rare and even then he never spoke to her. The hope of seeing her papa again was the only reason she didn’t shut her eyes now.

The surface of the pond was now completely still. Out of nowhere, an object came flying through the air and landed at the little girl’s feet. She clutched at her ears and let out a piercing scream that rent the non-existent atmosphere. Her scream subsided into sobs as she cried for her papa. The object was alien to her. It was small, black and rectangular in shape. It had some numbers on it. Her papa had taught her how to read. She read the letters N-O-K-I-A on the object but could not make any sense out of it.

The surface of the pond started rippling again.

2. Shit Happens

…and then there was Ansh.

Just when you think that things cannot get any worse, life, like a twisted Santa Claus, pops out of the chimney and flings some new horror at you. It’s almost like a challenge. You think that’s bad? Take this, loser!

Loser. A wonderfully pessimistic song by the post-grunge rock band -3 Doors Down. And also a song that fully reflected Anshuman’s state of being that pleasant evening.

You’re getting closer…to pushing me off of life’s little edge…

Anshuman, or Ansh as he was called by friends and family, turned up the volume of his MP3 player. He wanted to fill his head with the loud strummings of the lead guitarist…

...cause I’m a loser…sooner or later you know I’ll be dead…

And yet he could not block the voices in his head.

“Mom: You flunked the exam? How? You had bunked the exam? (faints)”

“Dad: You hit a pedestrian while driving the car? Was he hurt? What’s this, a hospital bill? May I see your driver’s license (sound of a driver’s license being torn to pieces)”

“Divya: Oh, actually, Vinay proposed to me last night...and I cant wait forever…(retreating footsteps)”

“Vinay: Loser!!! (maniacal laughter)”

You’re getting closer…you’re holding the rope and I’m taking the fall…cause I’m a loser…

The song ended like all rock songs do – abruptly. Ansh shifted in his seat and looked around in the large A/C Volvo bus. Over forty-five seats and nearly half occupied by the massive family members of his massive family. Most were fast asleep though the kids appeared to be knocked out from excessive screaming and wailing. Finally, there was some peace in the bus. He turned back to the window and decided that all in all it had been a pretty bad week. He had flunked an exam, lost his driver’s license, got dumped by his girlfriend and had somehow managed to sprain his right foot that morning before leaving for this family vacation. Family vacation. That usually meant his family rushing off to some place or the other, with oldies falling ill, children vomiting in the bus, cousins gossiping, uncles boozing, aunties shopping and Ansh sitting forlornly in some convenient corner and wondering if normal people exist only in fiction.

Presently, the lights were switched on inside the bus. They were entering the ghats. Ansh groaned. It was time for his family to lose their heavy afternoon lunch. He gingerly touched his swollen right foot and grimaced. But currently that was the least of his worries.

He would not admit it to anyone but he missed Divya like hell. After their disastrous phone conversation the previous night, he had desperately tried to get in touch with her. He consoled himself by dreaming up plausible excuses for her inability to return his calls but now his patience was running thin. How had things ever reached to such a state that she couldn’t find the time to even reply to a message? And Vinay? After everything that had happened between them, she chose Vinay? 

Ansh stared at his battered cell phone and willed it to beep. His only consolation was that for the past half hour he had almost no network connectivity. Maybe her message had arrived and was just waiting to leap into his phone, maybe she would call him up and say April fool or whatever-month-it-was fool, maybe Vinay was a cousin brother who loved to play practical jokes on his sister’s boyfriends or maybe he, Ansh, was a complete and absolute asshole. The general consensus was for the last option.

A humorless smile appeared on his lips. He noticed that most of his family was up and decided to close his eyes and at least pretend to be asleep.

 

He woke up with a jerk and realized that they had stopped moving.

“Come young man,” said a particularly enthusiastic Uncle ,”the fun is about to begin.”

Fun? Ansh laughed loudly…sure, fun. The uncle mistook his laughter to be an effect of his own infectious joy and moved ahead to further spread his charm. Ansh looked out the window into the gloomy darkness beyond and wondered if his family was actually stupid enough to want to vacation in the middle of nowhere. He could faintly make out the shapes of knobbly trees and foliage when a fine spray of rain began pouring down the window obscuring his vision even further. Rain. What difference did it make? He painfully hobbled out of the bus and was promptly saddled with two heavy suitcases by an industrious aunt and was instructed to take it to their rooms. Rooms? He then noticed some of his cousins walking along a path hidden in the overgrown foliage. There was no point in explaining his swollen foot to anyone. Dragging the two suitcases behind him, he moved down the path that would hopefully lead to a hotel of some kind and not a settlement of cannibals.

 

It was nearly midnight. Ansh stared at his phone. Limited Network, Emergency Calls Only. This was a bloody emergency! Divya, the queen of his nocturnal fantasies had now become the bane of his existence. And yet he longed to hear those cute baby lips spell out his name, that husky voice cooing in his ears, those expressive eyes looking at him-within him…his romantic musings were interrupted by a particularly pungent belch from an Uncle sleeping somewhere in the dark room. This was more than Ansh could bear. Sprained ankle or no sprained ankle, he put on a sweater and left the room in search of some mental peace, solitude and better network coverage.

 

One of the aunties had mentioned a pond nearby. Hopefully, it would be something more than a marshy pool with dead fishes floating on the surface. The thin sweater provided Ansh inadequate protection from the bitingly cold night air. He walked on towards the outer perimeter of the hotel hoping he would see the pond before actually falling into it. The night air was suffused with certain strong emotional currents, some veiled motives, some unchained desires. All of this was lost on Ansh who was still busy fiddling with his phone. He looked up and realized that he had reached onto a cliff of some sort. And beyond the cliff…was a pond. The sight of the still waters, rippling now and then as a wayward current of air passed over the surface, completed a hidden patter deep in Ansh’s emotional consciousness. His cell phone beeped. Divya. Two words. Good bye.

Ansh looked at the cell phone. It was a gift from Divya. He opened the back of the cell and took out the ‘sim’ card which he carefully placed in his pocket. And then in one fluid motion with a joy that was of both emotional and physical release, he swung his hand and flung the cell into the lake.

He failed to hear a splash. Instead he heard a sharp scream…

Oops?