Sorting Out Sid (41 page)

Sid had to hurry through the second Latte and promised Vikas that he would drop in soon to see Sunny and him. He hummed to himself as he drove to his next destination, feeling light. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic on the way. It was very important to be on time for this one.

Today was his young friend Kalpana Cauvery Mehra aka Kippy’s birthday and Sid had an important role to play: Chief Game Organizer. Good ol’ Sid Uncle to the rescue, again.

Sid was looking forward to seeing Neha. It had been a few days since they last met, but it wasn’t as if he had been pining for her … and that was nice. Things had been different ever since that day.

When Neha had arrived at the park with Aditi and Krish in tow there had been utter chaos. Neha, face red with emotion, first grabbed and hugged Kippy and then shouted at Kapil that he had no business taking her away like that. Kapil staunchly stuck to his guns, repeating his story about how he was supposed to pick up Kippy on Wednesday, and that he had the text message from her to prove it. She shot back that it was stupid to assume that it was meant to be the very next day if someone said ‘next Wednesday’ on a Tuesday! Apparently not one to back down easily, Kapil argued that it was actually the most natural assumption to make because in fact it was indeed the next Wednesday, and in any case, Neha had always been weird about the way she communicated. He then added, rather unnecessarily according to Sid, that since she was the flighty kind, always changing her mind at the drop of a hat, he had jumped to take the next morning’s flight before she changed her mind yet again. Neha bristled at this and had she not been holding Kippy in her arms, Sid thought, she might have flown at Kapil. It was clear no one managed to push her buttons like this guy.

At this point, Krish stepped in to calm them down; he pointedly mentioned that he was calling the police to tell them that their services were no longer required. This quieted the two of them down. Neha hugged Kippy tighter and Kapil finally seemed to realize they had all seriously thought Kippy had been taken away. After a pause, Aditi tentatively invited Neha and Kapil home for a chat to clear the little misunderstanding. Kapil appeared to have been caught off-guard with Aditi’s invitation, which was perhaps why he agreed. Neha muttered, loud enough for Sid to hear, that their whole marriage had been a little misunderstanding. But eventually she too agreed to go along.

Neha shot Sid a long and grateful glance when he offered to take Kippy home to Julie and play with her until she got home. It was the first look they had exchanged in almost a month and it was an eloquent one.

Sid headed to Neha’s place and played with Kippy for the next hour, glad that he wasn’t part of the conversation taking place at Aditi’s. He felt slightly worried about Neha. However, when she returned, she didn’t look perturbed at all. In fact, she looked quite calm.

Kippy jumped into Neha’s arms as soon as she walked in. Neha held her close until she scrambled out of her arms and went back to her jigsaw puzzle. Sid rose from his place beside Kippy on the floor and faced Neha. He swallowed once before he spoke.

‘Look, Neha, I’m sorry that I made such an ass of myself that day with Shiv. I didn’t know he was your cousin, and even though it doesn’t excuse it, I guess I was crazy jealous and I don’t know why I didn’t just apologize … but … you do know that I … I mean…’

Her angry scowl threw him off and he couldn’t find the words to finish his sentence. Then her face cleared and she murmured with a sheepish grin, ‘Can’t you just shut up?’

After a moment, relief flooded through Sid and he returned her grin and said, ‘Okay.’ He knew it was sound advice.

Neha walked up to him and put her arms around him in a tight hug, standing on tiptoe as usual. It wasn’t the first embrace they had been in, or the most passionate one, but it was warm. And friendly. And nice. And…

‘Sid?’ she whispered.

‘Yes?’ he murmured into her curly hair, happier and more at peace than he had felt in a long time.

She pulled back, holding him by the shoulders, and finally flashed him the smile that he had been waiting to see, before delicately wrinkling that nose with its halfway bump.

‘Could you please go take a bath?’

And so Sid had started cleaning up. He accepted Aditi’s repeated offer to help clean his house and the two of them worked through three evenings to make the place more respectable. It still had a long way to go, but that was okay, he would do it one step at a time.

Sid also called his mother. With complete sincerity he insisted now that he was living alone and they were getting old, it was time for them to relocate and live with him. It was his duty and responsibility as a son, and besides, he added in a rush of mumbled words … he
wanted
to do it.

He expected his mother to break down with emotion, but to his surprise she had laughed at the suggestion. ‘Sid beta, Papa and I are happy here
.
This is our home. We just want you to be happy.’ Sid could tell from her tone she was touched but very amused. ‘We would love to come and visit you more often, and for you to come and see us more, but as long as we’re both capable of getting about, we’re staying in Lucknow. Unless, of course…’ Her voice changed to a more concerned, questioning tone. ‘…you need us to come and take care of
you
?’

Sid hurriedly assured her that he was fine. He fidgeted guiltily as he informed her that his trips to Southeast Asia were now over and that she should call him whenever she wanted to talk. Sid was aware that his father was listening in to their conversation, from the well-timed grunts and huffy noises that were emanating from the background at the other end of the
line. Sid added, ‘And tell Papa I said hello and that he should take care of his health.’ There was another unfriendly grunt and some muttering, but Sid couldn’t help smiling when he hung up. After all, he thought, it’s expected.

Getting back into the work routine had not been difficult, but Sid had made an important resolve
–
he liked marketing but he had had it with Akash and those bloody toilet cleaners. Any job had to be better than this … so that was it! In another few months, he decided, he would be out of Kollin’s. Of course, he was going to put in his papers only
after
the Oktoberfest. And he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about that plan. In fact, he felt the exact opposite
–
he looked forward to seeing Akash’s face when he broke the news to him. And that was saying a lot, because never before in his life had he looked forward to seeing Akash’s face.

Sid parked his car right next to the bright yellow Honda City. Good, it didn’t look like too many people had arrived at the party yet. Sid got out and walked briskly to Neha’s building, his gift for Kippy under his arm. He hoped she would like it
–
a Kiddy Zoo with little plastic figurines of every conceivable animal. When the weather was nice, he resolved, he would take her to the Delhi Zoo to see the real thing.

The door was open, and he went in. He paused near the entrance to admire the festive decorations of balloons, streamers and the beautiful, friendly-looking Blue and Green Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey that he could tell Neha had painted herself.

She had her back to him and was placing some food on the table. She was wearing a sleeveless, black party dress and
he noted that she had even got her hair straightened for the occasion. He came up behind her and poked at her sides with his forefingers, murmuring, ‘You look rather “sasky” for a kiddie party, don’t you?’

She jumped and spun around. It had been a mere joke and Sid did not expect the shocked expression. Actually, he did not expect a different face either
–
it wasn’t Neha! It was an imposter. A far older version, at that.

‘Oh,’ Aditi’s voice floated in from the kitchen door, ‘I see you’ve met Neha’s mom. Aunty, this is Sid.’

Sid’s ears were hot and he opened his mouth to apologize. But Neha’s mother didn’t look perturbed, in fact, she looked rather pleased. She batted her heavily mascaraed lids at him and murmured, ‘Yes, he’s very … charming.’

Aditi marched over to Sid, saying, ‘He is, aunty, isn’t he? And just in time to help and make himself useful.’ She put her hand on his shoulder and firmly steered him away from the dining area into the drawing room. Sid glanced back nervously and saw Neha’s mother getting back to her work with the Chips and Dip, but this time with a dreamy smile on her face.

Sid was about to thank Aditi fervently, but she spoke first, in an urgent whisper, ‘Thank God you’re here. Neha invited Kapil and he insisted on bringing the return gifts. She told him on the phone to get fourteen, and he’s brought forty, and now they’re arguing about whose fault it was. Maybe they should have stuck to texting.’

Sid saw Neha and Kapil in a corner, standing and scowling at each other.

‘Hello, people,’ Sid called. Neha turned to him with a tight smile. Kapil eyed him suspiciously at first and then nodded
although he didn’t go as far as a smile. Sid continued, ‘I hear there are lots of gifts! That’s great because I need to use them all as prizes for the kids when I’m doing the games! Can never give away too many prizes, eh?’

Immediately, the tension in the air started to dissolve. Neha gave him an open grin, saying, ‘Thanks for agreeing to do this, Sid. I know you’ll handle them very well.’

Sid cracked his knuckles and cleared his throat. ‘You bet! Bring them on!
Every kid loves Uncle Sid
. Hey, that can be my slogan!’

They all laughed and even Kapil looked less sullen. Sid, Aditi and Neha busied themselves with final touches to the party decorations and, after a few minutes of watching them, Kapil got into the act and started blowing balloons in a perfectly civil manner.

Two hours later, Sid sat on the drawing-room sofa, his head lolling back. His throat hurt from all the shouting. After about the third game, he had given up trying to bring about any semblance of order. There were children of all ages, from two- to nine-year-olds and it had been impossible to get them to follow any rules. But Sid kept up with their energy levels till the very end, and the games had been the biggest success of the party.