PLAN. EXT. PRITHVI. NIGHT.

Open in Prithvi Café. The bell rings, signaling the beginning of the second act. The crowd slowly moves in.
Pan to VEENA and NISH sitting at a table in a far corner.
VEENA is sipping on Irish Coffee.
NISH drinks tea from a plastic cup.
VEENA is talking nineteen to the dozen.
NISH is smiling.
Suddenly, VEENA looks like she has thought of something.
She looks at NISH.
Places her cup on the table.
And turns to NISH.

She grabs his arm, almost spilling his tea.

VEENA
You know what.

NISH looks at his pants for tea stains.
Looks at VEENA.

NISH
What.

VEENA’s eyes are twinkling with excitement.

VEENA
When we’re 34, we should get married.

NISH laughs. Goes back to sipping his tea.

NISH
Eh? No more marriage pacts. I have two already. (stops to think, corrects himself) One now, Priya is committed.

VEENA shakes his arm, seriously disrupting the tea.

VEENA
No. No! Not a marriage pact, dodo. See, the palmreader told you right, you’re gonna meet someone when you’re 34 and you guys will fall like a ton of bricks and you will be so good for each other? Well??

NISH looks lost.

NISH
Well what?

VEENA
Us! Stupid! You and I would have done our things by 34, so maybe that guy was talking about us! You and I meet and move to Mauritius and buy a house on the beach with an open kitchen and living room on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the first floor with a library on the landing where our babies will hide when we’re mad at them!

NISH
Why would we be mad at our babies?

VEENA
You know if they’ve been naughty or not studying … (she shakes herself back to the matter at hand) but that’s not the point, stupid! I mean, seriously. You think?

NISH smiles and finishes his tea.
Decides to go with the joke.

NISH
Sounds like a plan.

VEENA smiles gleefully and takes a sip of her Irish Coffee.

VEENA
Yes, and till then you’ll be all gorgeous and all after 5 years of Yoga and I’ll have giant breasts and we’ll be sorted.

NISH grabs his stomach.

NISH
That we can do now, just lipo my stomach off and load it on your chest.

VEENA
But we’re only destined to be together at 34, remember.

NISH nods understandingly.
VEENA finishes her drink.

NISH
Chal, I’ll drop you home.

VEENA
Ill come home and pack for you before you leave.

NISH
I’ll carry woolens, don’t worry.

VEENA
I don’t trust you.

NISH
And you want to marry someone you don’t trust?

VEENA smiles. Takes NISH’s arm.

VEENA
Bastard.

The past one week has rushed by like a blur. A tiring, promising, bittersweet, insanely restless yet satisfying blur. In between drinking myself silly and attending an awesome Blues gig (complete with dinner and extended chat with the band) and driving my car over a divider and busting its gearbox and driving to town and back pretty much everyday and watching movies and smoking a fatty in the middle of the day and falling asleep all painlessly numb and other hectic workstuff, I even managed to cheat on the love of my life. I’m sorry Mitali, I’m back for good.

I think it’s been particularly tiring because I’ve been driving my Santro. Not that it’s a bad car – it’s a great car, but it’s like the girl in the little black number who was your prom date in college. On the other hand, my Alto is like the bohemian girl dressed in torn jeans and tshirt with whom you watch terrible hindi movies and have vada pao and cutting chai at street corners. Also, I’m a bit used to the rattling of the whisky glasses I keep under my seat in my Alto, which I sorely missed in my Santro.

But there’s a buzz now. And I’m not talking about illegal substances. It’s in the air, it’s in my phone ringing off the hook, it’s in the 5 o’clock lunches and the unsettling energy around me. And I’m loving it, in present continuous tense.

I’ll be around, albeit a little less frequently than before. And I’ll continue to be pleasantly surprised by my life as long as I’ve got my Alto and my undying love for Mitali to keep me sane.

I used to play cricket during school days. After shuffling between slots (I was a moderately successful pinch hitter, an unsuccessful right arm spinner and an alarmingly bad 1^st slipper) I finally found my calling as an opening batsman. I was the slow and steady sort, I’d hold up one end while my co-opener would go ballistic at the other. It meant that all the girls cheered when he took the crease and booed when I did, but it didn’t matter as long as we put up a half decent opening stand. Ok, it mattered a little.

I also used to play lead guitar. I was in a band too, and the only gig we did was awful. Mainly because I was the lead singer as well. I didn’t take up guitar to be in a band, I decided to start playing when I picked up a Givson lying around at my friends place and I simply loved the sound of my fingers sliding on the strings.

It’s been years now and I don’t do either anymore. I stopped playing cricket right after school. I stopped playing guitar during school itself; some strings broke and I never bothered to buy new ones. If I remember correctly, I think my father gave it away to some kid when we moved home.

But even today, I cannot resist a cricket bat. There’s always a couple lying around at the office, and I just can’t stop myself from picking it up and practicing forward defense and a flick off the pads to square leg. Like every other batsman, good length outside the off stump was always my weakness. So you won’t really see me practicing the art of leaving the outswinging delivery.

Ditto with a guitar. But because a guitar is more personal than a cricket bat, I make it a point to ask the owner if he’s okay with me strumming about a bit. I can’t do much anymore, somehow I’ve managed to unlearn it all. But I can still play a half decent ‘Fast Car’.

It’s funny how the things we love never leave our persona, despite our best efforts to leave them behind. They become an integral part of us, sometimes in the most oblivious way.

So the next time you see someone practicing a square cut or a straight drive while walking down the street, or strumming air guitar to ‘Money for Nothing’ over at Ghetto’s or Toto’s, cut him some slack. Chances are, if he’d have kept at it, Mr. Dravid and Mr. Satriani would’ve had something to worry about.

I’m looking out into the sky. There’s no clouds, it’s just an endless misplaced abyss. Her voice draws me out, towards the abyss, but I cannot see her. I pause for a second, maybe I was wrong. But before I can turn back, I hear her voice again. Help me, say something now. You always have something to say, now where’s the voice gone? How you would sit there with a cigarette between your fingers spewing your views about work and practical reality and social whores and global capitalism while I sat wide eyed like a primary school student listening to your idealistic bullcrap? How you told me everything there was to be told from the heart about creating and destroying art? How you said that everything you knew was wrong and everything I knew and will know and will create will be pure and beautiful in its honesty? You told me those things and I believed you, I trusted you and now you’ve got nothing left to say? Look where I am now, just look at me. What good is that lump in your throat to me? Why do your shoulders seem weak when I hold on to you for dear life? Say something now, do something, I don’t want to end up a forgotten keycode, a reminiscent signature on a painting, a lonely lead pencil or a piece of charcoal! Surely you can say something, you’re my godfather my guru my guiding light. You always have all the answers!

I hope and pray that I never reach the end of the abyss, and the silence never comes.