Just the Way You Are (5 page)

I had nothing more to say. ‘Okay, sure. Thanks.' I hung up and stubbed the phone on the seat. It toppled over like my hopes. Hope. Ah! That's surely the wrong word. Not to be found in my dictionary, at least, I thought bitterly.

I went completely blank after that. I didn't know what to do and whom to talk to. I could not believe that people could be so callous. He could have definitely called me once or maybe texted me. Was he lying? It's difficult to say nowadays what kind of notions people harbour in their minds. Or maybe Delhi makes you such. Dunno! Anyway, I had to figure out the next POA now. Dad was actually right. You never know where you may end up therefore a hotel seemed to be the ideal solution for the time being. I hoped the train would reach before it turned dark. It would otherwise be difficult to navigate through the city. Plus I had no idea which way to go look out for a good, cheap hotel.

I kept sitting by the window for a while, staring into space, and then thought of calling up Gaurav. He had once told me that in case I found myself in any trouble in Delhi, I should let him know. He knew a good number of places. Affordable ones!

I called him. After three rings, he answered the phone.

‘Hello, Gaurav. Sameer here.'

‘Yeah, Sameer. Tell me. How are you?'

‘Yeah. I am fine. I am about to reach Delhi in an hour or two but due to some problem, I may have to find myself a hotel for the time being.'

‘Okay. No problem. Do one thing. Which station will you be reaching?' he asked.

‘Hazrat Nizamuddin.'

‘Okay. Take an auto from there to Paharganj. And ask anyone there about Hotel Priya Palace. They know me. You can give my reference also. It's quite affordable.'

I felt relaxed after this.

As expected, the train reached New Delhi at around 4 pm and with all my luggage, I somehow managed to reach Hotel Priya Palace.

I had come to Delhi for the first time. So I was naturally very excited. I picked up my phone and soon posted on Facebook:
Back to the relic root of India, with Khan's, parathe, Chandni, minars, and of course Sameer ... on a roll with Dilli!! Hellooooooo!'

That week was very uncomfortable for me. First, I had to stay in the hotel and commuting was really difficult. And the HR head of my company was on leave. I had to wait till she got back and literally struggled to find the location of my office. This is exactly why I don't put much faith in companies in this country. They could have easily mailed me or it could have been a self-generating message where they could have let me know which office centre was to be assigned to me. Morons!

Then it was Diwali. It was the first time that I had to spend the festival alone in a hotel. I was sad and flashes of home lit with candles and diyas streamed in my head like a film. The sound of crackers filled my ears and I could once again smell the familiar gunpowder-burnt air on the night, as I did on Diwalis spent at home. How might they be spending the day this year? The faces of my parents floated up like smoke in front of me and I could see the reflection of a faraway lit lantern on the wall of my room. I had a strange urge to run out and walk down the street but I was too sad. I finally decided that the perfect solution to such situations was Facebook. I logged in and scrolled down to find a shock awaiting me.

Satyan and his girlfriend had posted pictures on Facebook in an album titled: ‘Diwali in Noida'.

I couldn't understand why he had lied to me. He kept asking me on Facebook how everything was. Had I found a decent accommodation for myself? Was my office centre location given to me? And if there would be any further difficulty, he would certainly help me find a better place to stay when he returned. I didn't bother to reply. I had had enough of shallow people in my world already.

Time never passes fast in such moments and finally I decided, after a long battle with myself, to go outside and explore Delhi. The nearest place that I could go was Connaught Place.

I roamed around Connaught Place and found that it lit up like a new bride. As far as the eye could see, there were people hustling and bustling about and the shops were practically choking with humanity. In the darkness of night light seemed to dance everywhere, from the glittering bangles on girls' wrists to the shining salwar-suits of aunty-jis, to pillars and posts draped in colourful banners. I tried to ease my restless heart by looking at all of it and then decided to return to the hotel. I asked the hotel boy to get me dinner in my room and decided to stay back in the hotel the next day as well. There was a two-day break for Diwali and the office would be closed. I never thought that the first year I would land a job would bring with it my worst Diwali experience. Plus staying alone somehow chafed at my heart and I couldn't be at peace. It was indeed painful, but I guess I had no other way than to think of the good times in years gone by and smile to myself.

Five hours of sleep was not at all enough for me. I had too much stuff going on inside my head, with all the sadness of being alone and helpless, and thanks to the people outside the hotel bursting crackers till the wee hours of the morning to the shrill tunes of ‘Sheela ki jawaani' and ‘Munni badnaam hui', I couldn't get back to sleep. I tried stuffing cotton balls into my ears and pressed my pillow against my temple. But has anything ever worked against the tenacity of Dilliwallas? I finally gave up and got out of bed at 5.30 am, shaved, and showered. I looked at myself in the mirror and found myself looking worn out. I looked gloomy and pulling a pretentious smile too didn't bring about any change. I took the metro and reached office at 9 am. I had checked the way on Google Maps and had roughly calculated the time. It was my first day of reporting and I had expected that the HR head must have returned. But she was nowhere to be found. I tried conversing with a couple of other people but they seem to have no idea where they belonged and if at all they worked in the same office. There was a boy who sat just across from her cubicle. I tried asking him if he knew about the placements or if he knew when the HR head would be coming in. He seemed disinterested, as if I wasn't even there. He was trying to solve something with a paper and pencil and seemed to be cracking the code for an upcoming war. It was only after I had repeated the same question thrice that he raised his head and looked at me as if suddenly life had burst into this world. He looked at me questioningly. I repeated, ‘Sir, I am here to meet Ms Vatsala. I am a new associate. Could you let me in on when and how I will be able to see her at the earliest?'

He didn't say anything. I wasn't sure whether he was paying attention to my words or was lost somewhere, perhaps stuck in his coding. I wasn't expecting this kind of attitude. I repeated my question again. He just nodded. I couldn't understand what his nod meant. Was it a yes or a no?

I waited for a few more minutes in the hope that he might come to his senses and respond properly. But hope often disappoints you. And when it comes to me, it always disappoints me. It was just the beginning for me, I believe.

Disappointed, I left the room. I didn't know where to go and whom to meet. I took out the appointment letter again and checked the location of the office. It was the same office. I looked for the name and designation of whom I was supposed to report to. It was the exact same.

I came out. On my way downstairs, I passed a lady and thought of asking her. She was a bit aged and her body language was that of a top-class management honcho. I asked her. ‘Excuse me, Ma'am. Could you please tell me where I can meet Ms Vatsala?'

‘Are you a new associate?' she asked. The question rekindled a new hope within me.

‘Yes. I was told to report for work today.'

‘Okay.' She gestured to me to follow her and led me to the same room where just a moment back I had found the biggest code cracker of the world. What a nutcase!

He looked around everywhere as if seeking an answer out of air and then slowly opened his mouth, ‘Actually, she hasn't come in to office yet.'

Without waiting for me to say anything, she asked the guy, ‘Rajesh, do you know when Vatsala will be coming in?'The guy, who was pretending a few minutes back to be busy as hell, replied without the lapse of a second, ‘Um, I haven't seen her, actually. Just check whether her bag is there at her desk.'

‘No. Her belongings are not here.'

‘That means she hasn't as yet come in.'

She looked at me and said, ‘Um, what's your name?'

‘Sameer.'

‘Sameer, Vatsala is not yet in. You can wait for her in the waiting lounge. Give me your contact number and she will call you if she comes otherwise you just come here and check in an hour's time.'

‘Okay.' I gave her my number and plonked myself down in the waiting room.

It was already full with guys and girls. All seemed to be new joinees. The company hired more and more employees every year. More than it could pay at times. That's precisely the reason why engineers are underpaid. And with such companies coming to college campuses for placements, I was sure the number of employees would definitely surpass the population of Jaunpur or Hisar, for that matter. All of them were quiet. Pin-drop silence. Everyone looked as if they were pissing in their pants. Just one odd man sat in the middle of the sofa in front of me and seemed to occupy the entire length of it. He spoke in a voice loud enough to put many Indian politicians to shame. I looked around to scan the faces and bodies. The girls, except for a couple, were certainly beautiful. One of the guys was muttering under his breath, ‘Why is it that we always land up in the kind of batch where either the senior or the junior girls are beautiful and we are left with the ugly ones?'' I pretended not to have heard this and suppressed a smile. After some time, the couple of so-called ugly girls also seemed beautiful to me. This was the fate of depravity! The boy was by now was busy discussing with another sitting near him how the company tricked ugly girls into a single batch so that they could hand them similar job titles and profiles and the beautiful girls were secured for the best positions. It was all about marketing and getting the best benefits.

I heard his friend reply disdainfully, ‘What can be done? It's all written in fate.'

I was almost agape at such a remark and whispered to myself, ‘What the hell! Aren't they beautiful? Am I blind or was it the south India effect?

The impact of my four-year stay in south India during my engineering was so profound that I fancied that every girl in this world was beautiful. You could find the spunk in every other girl you met but not in a south Indian. Who knows, one day I might start dating a Nigerian girl. The third girl sitting at the end of the sofa was a bombshell. Her lips were so thick and juicy. What did they want—Mallika Sherawat?

I ignored them and waited patiently for the call.

Someone came down the stairs and shouted, ‘Whoever is here to meet Ms Vatsala can leave and come tomorrow.' A few heads flew up in shock along with mine.

‘Why?' all of us shouted together.

‘She is on leave.'

‘That means that after making us wait for three hours, you realize that she is on leave.'

He ignored this and shouted again, ‘Those who are waiting for Ms Vandana can wait for her in the canteen. She is coming in ten minutes.'

Almost all the girls walked towards the canteen. No one followed behind me as I ventured towards the exit.

There were no girls in my domain expertise! What the hell! Was this my destiny? I left the office building.

Nothing seemed to go right that day. I couldn't sleep properly, nor could I eat or take rest. Everything was chaotic inside my head and the HR issue was making me completely worked up. The only respite was the weather. Surprisingly it was cooler and the breeze seemed to be very unlike Delhi. I was hungry too, so got myself some patties. I could keep the leftovers in my room in case I felt like eating more later. I decided to go to Connaught Place again. It would look different during the day. I was clearer then. A circular block of art, I would say. The architecture was British, no doubt, but now all of those buildings were replaced by mega-shopping malls and stores. It was grandiose everywhere. People came in hordes to buy things, some of them just lingering, enjoying the place, some licking ice-cream sticks and talking of the weather, all sporting shades and brands. In the inner circular block was a garden with young couples flirting around the bushes. Evening had come down like silk and the place looked spectacular. I was thrilled.

‘Oh god! Where the hell did I spend my youth? The real heaven is here,' I whispered to myself when I saw the golden Delhi girls moving around flamboyantly. Their tongues rolled around the ‘R's and their accent could give Emma Watson a run for her money! I was bowled over by their exclamations. I tried imitating them. But each time I did, my tongue stuck midway and my throat failed me. I laughed at myself. My tone seemed so rough and broken. Someday I would, I must strive to achieve what had escaped me so far. And speaking fluent English was definitely on the list. I too would give others a run for their money. Some of the girls had taken the arms of their boyfriends and were walking around the inner circle. Something pinched at my heart. I felt deprived all over again.

What could you have expected from someone who had spent four years of his youth in some remote village doing an engineering course? I had almost forgotten that there was a world outside and in that world, there were, of course, beautiful girls. Life had so far been an abyss of unending monotony and tedium. I had almost come to believe that beautiful girls were to be found only in TV ads and in movies. Whenever some of the boys, like me, cursed their fate of having landed up in this ghetto of darkness, guys from the metro cities would encourage us. They would ask us to not to let go of hope and assure us that beautiful girls were for real and were not just limited to TV and soaps. One day I was online on Facebook trying to the best of my abilities to befriend a new chick. ‘So, what are doing? Checking out hot girls?'