Sorting Out Sid (37 page)
Number one: paint the walls black and purple.
Number two: install a disco-type lighting system.
Number three: get all new furniture and throw out what she left behind, except Brownie.
Number four: get a bar in place, including those cool, tall, round, spinning stools.
Number five: call up all my old friends whom she didn’t like and begin socializing with them again.
Number six: host dinner parties every weekend, each time with a different, and more interesting circle of friends.
Number seven: travel each month to an exotic new destination and fill this place up with expensive souvenirs.
Number eight: call ma and papa to visit more often and make them feel welcome to stay as long as they want (Give them time to get used to the purple and black walls and the disco bar decor).
Number nine: take up photography again and decorate the walls with self-created art.
Number ten: start peeing with the bathroom door open.
Sid was counting off each item on his fingers. Now, as he contemplated the last item, he was left with only one finger held out. Ironically, it was his little finger and as he looked at it, he realized that indeed he felt the urge to pee right now. It was a good time to start putting his plans into action. He would start at the bottom and work his way up, he decided. That was always best. He tried to get up but Brownie pulled him back into her warm, comforting folds and he thought he would put it off for just a few more minutes.
‘So what, Brownie,’ he asked his beanbag, ‘so what if we haven’t yet done even one of the items on the list? After all, it’s only been a few days. We have the rest of our lives to be single. Ha ha!’ Sid’s laugh rang a bit hollow, and he couldn’t
help but notice that Brownie’s silence was cool and knowing. It made him uncomfortable. He thought he would try and distract Brownie with a totally different line of questioning, and blurted out, ‘You think she’s right?’
Brownie didn’t ask what he meant and Sid knew that she understood instinctively that he wasn’t talking about Mandira. ‘She said,’ he confided, ‘I
use
people. I didn’t tell you this earlier, Brownie, because I thought it might colour your opinion of her and she isn’t a bad person at all. Actually, I thought she was wonderful. Well, she probably is, but I can’t talk to her any more. Because she thinks I was using her. Can you believe
that
?’
Sid listened for Brownie’s response and was surprised with what popped into his head. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?
She
would agree?’ He realized Brownie was referring to Mandira. ‘Well, of course, she would. She thought I used her to the extent that I ruined her life! Left her an aged, single woman with no chance of ever having a baby and all that blah blah
blah
!’
He frowned as he listened to Brownie’s thoughts. He took a drink to fortify himself before answering. ‘Sure. You’re saying what matters, at the end of the day, is what I truly believe.’ Sid sighed and leaned his head back. With his eyes closed, he let out a hmm. He tried to open his eyes again but the lids felt too heavy. It seemed the only thing to do was to just keep them closed for the time being.
Heavy. Heaviness was what he felt all over. His head felt like it was made of lead and his whole body seemed to be pulled down by some extra gravity through Brownie and towards the floor. Heaviness was what had marked his every move in the last two weeks. Not that he had moved much.
Ever since the day of his fight with Neha
–
was that the day after Mandira finally moved out? Sid couldn’t recall
–
both the events had happened around the same time. Right after that fiasco, he had taken time off from work because he needed it. But it had been getting increasingly difficult to get out of bed each morning. And then, more and more, it didn’t seem worth his while to actually be cleaning up the sundry pizza boxes. He had made all those plans to learn how to cook for himself, but so far every single night, it had just been Dominos’ and Pizza Hut. Anything more complicated than picking up the phone and ordering hadn’t seemed worth it.
In fact, on three separate days, he hadn’t even bothered to order because the leftovers of the previous day were still lying around. He knew that since he hadn’t bothered to refrigerate, it wasn’t the smartest thing to be consuming them, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter, in fact. Sid vaguely suspected that he may have been eating pizzas more stale than he thought they were. His only way of identifying which pizza arrived when was by trying to remember where he had left which box. But all that beer had made his memory fuzzy. Sid had been drinking a lot more than usual.
It had been more than a week since Sid had last seen the world outside. It hadn’t been too difficult getting his leave sanctioned
–
after all, he had a lot of leaves piled up. He did remember calling Akash in a particularly drunken but dutiful moment, to explain that he was having a personal emergency and needed about two weeks off. Akash had said something in response and he hadn’t sounded all that happy, but then, Sid hadn’t been listening too carefully. In fact, Sid had barely stopped himself from murmuring, ‘Bye, commode,’ before hanging up, and that itself was something.
Sid had thought initially that he might as well spend his ‘Time Off’ doing up the house. Of course, he hadn’t done any of that yet, apart from creating his list. But he wasn’t planning to cut his leave short. It was too comfortable and safe at home. He didn’t relish the thought of a daily bath and shave and having to deal with people just yet. Maybe after another week, when he had things all figured out. Or maybe … two weeks. Who knew?
He had been avoiding calls from his parents too. Only once did Sid take his mother’s call, and then he quickly said, ‘Ma, I’m in Kuala Lumpur, but I’ll call back soon. Yes, she has moved out. Don’t worry, everything is good, GOOD!’
He knew everyone would ask him the same old, boring, stupid, irrelevant and highly annoying question now that they all knew that he was divorced. The one that would cause him to clench his teeth and fists unwittingly even as he forced his face into a bright smile and replied, ‘Good, GOOD!’ The question was always a variant of a very concerned ‘So, how are you taking it?’
‘How do I
look
like I’m taking it?’ he asked Brownie mentally, eyes still closed. He was feeling too tired to actually speak any more. He was absolutely fine, of course. Why couldn’t anyone ever just understand that and leave him alone?
He didn’t realize at what point he had fallen asleep. His mother was standing before him, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking as she cried uncontrollably. His father stood next to her, shaking an accusing finger at Sid as he shouted, ‘You’ve ruined our lives, Sid. You never bothered to give us anything in our old age. All we hoped was that you would give us a grandson, or even a granddaughter. We had so looked forward to it! But all you’ve done is made us the
laughing stock of society. Why? After all, we told you not to marry that girl and let us find a match for you.’
Sid’s mother looked up, hope in her tear-filled eyes. ‘Even now it’s not too late, beta, come to Lucknow and have dinner with Ratna aunty, her daughter is a doctor, she is also … divorced, and…’
‘
Stop trying to fix me up!
’ Sid shouted, unable to control himself. ‘It’s all your fault anyway
–
you never ever let me do what I wanted to while I was growing up … that’s why I’m who I am today. I sell toilet cleaners for a living! I wanted to do something creative but you never supported it. And you want to know something? I finally decided to marry Mandira because you
didn’t
like her! And that’s a fact. So, ha ha ha HA … it’s all your fault!’
‘What?’ Mandira screamed as she materialized next to Sid’s mother, who floated off and watched from the sidelines, trembling with fear, alongside her husband. ‘
That’s
why you married me? That explains a lot. You never really wanted to be with me, you were just trying to prove some sort of a point in your own trademark, fucked-up manner. Well, you want to know something? You totally fucked my life in the process. I wasted so much time on you! You’ve left me an old, childless has-been with practically no chance of ever finding happiness again…’
‘Listen, all that may be true,’ Sid said, trying to calm her down. He knew there was no other way to deal with her when she got like this. ‘But could you please stop abusing in front of ma and papa?’
‘They’ve left, you moron,’ Mandira snapped at him and Sid saw she was indeed right. Ma and papa had disappeared from the scene. ‘And what do you mean
–
“all that may be true” –
you
agree
that I’m an old, childless has-been with practically no chance of finding happiness ever again? You’re
abusing
me now?’
‘No, no, Mandy…’
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘Okay, sorry, but no, no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that yes, I messed up, I should have never married you in the first place; it was the wrong decision for both of us, and…’
‘Aahaa, so, now you’re negating our entire relationship? You’re saying there’s never been a single moment worth anything in all of our interactions over all the years that we were together? Is that it then?’
Sid closed his eyes and screamed as loudly as he could, ‘You’re the one who slept with someone else. Stop yelling at me!’
When he next opened his eyes, he saw that Mandira was suddenly a lot shorter. She had morphed into Neha, who stood there, head tilted to the side. ‘I didn’t know you were capable of yelling. Yelling almost makes it seem like you actually have some emotions.’ Her tone was quiet but sarcastic, and he felt like each one of her words was punching him in the gut.
‘I do have emotions, Neha,’ Sid cried. ‘It’s just that you never saw them
–
you didn’t give me a chance!’
‘You had your chance, Sid, and you were happy to use your chance for the sex, but when it came to actually
caring
, you ran away. Typical, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t even go there.’ Sid was getting angry now. He wouldn’t have thought Neha would ever behave like such a …
woman
. ‘It wasn’t about the sex. I mean, the sex was great, but you know I wanted more.’
‘Yes … more sex.’
‘Stop saying that, Neha. I knew her name all along, it’s…’ His mind blanked out. Neha stood there, mocking and triumphant, her arms crossed over her chest, and he cried, ‘Now look what you made me do! I forgot her name … Wait … Wait … let me think…’
It was important to be able to remember. But now his parents, Mandira, Neha and even Aditi were standing around, hurling all kinds of accusations at him. Sid couldn’t take it any more. He suddenly remembered the scene from the Ramayana where Sita implored Mother Earth to swallow her up.
‘Brownie! Do it! Swallow me up, now!’ he commanded and closed his eyes.
Slowly, Brownie began to expand herself and Sid sank deeper into her. He hadn’t been prepared for the feeling of suffocation that would accompany this form of escape. He struggled, but Brownie closed in on him relentlessly. He could no longer see the people around him. They were beginning to fade away. Sid felt himself choking. This is what death feels like, he thought in a detached manner even as his body struggled to resist the end. He didn’t know whether to feel grateful or resentful. Was Brownie rescuing him from his torturous existence or was she too turning on him like all the others, choosing to punish him in this ghastly manner? He didn’t know any more and he decided that he didn’t care either. He slipped away into the vacuum-like, suffocating and total blackness.
With a start, Sid gasped awake, sat up and coughed. It took him a few moments to realize that he had fallen asleep with his face buried into one of Brownie’s folds. It was an awkward
position and one that had caused him to almost choke on his own saliva, which had been dripping and collecting in this particular fold. A few more deep gasps of air and he began to feel distinctly human again.
It’s not your fault, Brownie. He patted her comfortingly and added, slightly mortified, Sorry about the spit.
He struggled out of her with difficulty and went to pick up his phone. It was almost 3 a.m. Wow. His bladder informed him that he’d better pee … or else.
Sid staggered around in the dark until he found the bathroom. He went inside and shut the door. He unzipped and just before he started to pee, he remembered.
Time to get going with that list. With great difficulty, he held back his pee for a few more seconds to hop back to the bathroom door and push it wide open.
King of my Castle, he thought to himself. I can pee with the door
open.
‘Ha, ha!’ Sid croaked weakly, determined to savour the moment.
The feeling of immense lightness and relief that came as he took the longest pee ever was unparalleled. This was Freedom.
And then, he noticed how the sound of his peeing was echoing throughout the house, making the lonely, still, late hour even more eerie than before.
Dammit.