Three star guy

It was still dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of the Delhi airport. The early morning February air was pleasantly cold.

I was travelling to Bengaluru to attend a college friend’s wedding. It had been four years since we graduated from the same college. This wedding was also going to be a reunion of our batch mates. But what I didn’t know was that the reunion would begin much ahead of time; right in the queue in front of the airline counter.

I was almost sure it was she. Same height! Same long hair! Same complexion! Curiosity had my eyes glued to her. And then about 60-odd seconds later, when she turned, she proved me right. My ex-girlfriend stood two places ahead of me in that queue. We had never met after the college farewell.

Our eyes met for a split second, and I could feel a sensation in my stomach I hadn’t felt in years – a queasy sickening feeling of the question ‘What might have been?’ which I often associated with her. But then her eyes passed through me, unrecognized and I found a soft smile rising to my lips. What had I expected? She hardly could have remembered me, even though we had dated. I mean, and I feel too embarrassed to mention this, but she had been more than drunk and we had gone out only for one night. But that night had been perfect in so many ways; I would give anything to relive it, and again I would give anything not to.

She stood there, with her red streaked long black hair and her red overcoat, just a hand’s reach away now, but I hesitated. I was wearing my business suit and black trousers, plain full shirt within, an expensive watch; everything about me contrasted so vividly from Juhi, who was like wild art painted in hues of red and yellow, an untamed fire. I on the other hand was a simple cold azure.

Yet the temptation to talk with her was too much, and I found myself waving to her, laughing with joy inside but maintaining an almost euphemistic face on the outside. A look of annoyance and confusion passed across her face as she looked quizzically at me. I approached her.

“Hey, Juhi! You don’t remember me, do you?”

Juhi simply shook her head. She kept her face set to a mildly polite and interested one. God, but she looked divine.

“Well, I don’t blame you.” I continued, “It has been, what, four years now?”

“I knew you from college?”

I smiled.

“Yes, in fact I m off to my friend Ravi’s wedding in Bangalore?”

I couldn’t quite keep the statement from sounding like a question and Juhi took notice.

“Hey, what a coincidence! I am headed there myself.”

We exchanged smiles. I felt an increasing discomfort around my collar, as I waited for the inevitable question now forming on the pretty features of my ex.

“You must forgive me, but I can’t seem to recall you at all. It’s probably my fault; I was never very sociable in college!” Juhi laughed. As I recalled, Juhi was more than sociable in college – Juhi was downright popular. But I did not mention that.

“Oh, but do tell, how do I know you?” Juhi continued, owing to my silence.

How was I supposed to tell her that I had the most amazing night ever of my life because of her? How was I to explain all that had had happened, how was I even to come up with the words? She stood there expectantly, looking regally beautiful. How was I to tell her that in four years I had never been able to forget her, while she had so conveniently forgotten me the next morning? Thankfully I was saved by the announcement of our plane arriving, and we both walked together towards the terminal.

I managed to avoid that question further, until I boarded the plane and took a sigh of relief. It was best that she had forgotten me. There was no point in reminding her of what had occurred that fateful day. In mid-flight though, Juhi must have decided otherwise, for she was presently asking my neighbor to switch seats so she could sit next to me.

“I never quite caught your name.” She smiled. Why was she so pretty?

I hesitated.

“My name is Deepak, senior executive of…”

“Oh god, you are terribly formal!” She made a face. God, why was she so pretty?

“So how do I know you? You never told me.”

“The college farewell party …” but then I stopped myself, for a look of hurt had passed through her face. It disappeared as quickly as it had come, but I had noticed it. I kept mum.

We began talking about many thing’s; Ravi’s wedding party most certainly would be smashing, and how we never had expected him to get married, and some such topics. But my mind was not into it, going far off to a party four years ago. The college farewell party …

***

Back in college, one would describe me as the tall skinny kid who always hung around with Ravi. Ravi was the life of a party, a maniac with alcohol and marijuana, and even more irresponsible with his love life. I, on the other hand, was just his friend. And that is how everyone knew me.

It was the final day of college, and a huge college farewell party had been organized by Ravi at our apartment. Almost everyone had come, boozing and dancing till their minds went blank. I waded through this group of men, now gone insensible with the amount of adulterants in their system, and stood in the corner. I did not drink, nor did I smoke. I was the misplaced piece in a huge puzzle that made no sense.

At one point, I went up to my room, closing the door behind me. I had a lot of packing left to do. I was one of the few people to have gotten an amazing job, and I had to leave the next morning early. It was already 12 am, though I doubted I could sleep with the amount of sound that was coming through the gaps in my door. Still, I plopped my pillow over my face and hoped sleep would come to me.

I heard a scraping noise at my window. I looked up and my face immediately filled with horror.

A black shape was entering my room through the window and I did the only thing I could think of. I leaped at the shape, action replacing fear and grabbed the person and slammed him on the wall.

A female groan escaped through the woman, who I was holding at places a man should only hold his wife. Taking my hands back hastily, I looked at her.

She had very pretty eyes, an almost bird-like mouth which was not at all displeasing, and an alcohol filled breath.

“Gosh,” I exclaimed, the pungent smell now disgusting me, “How drunk are you?”

She did not respond, but fell to the floor, her face bulging as she projectile vomited on the floor. I felt overly glad that I was leaving early tomorrow, for I knew my landlord would kill me if I didn’t.

I sighed. This girl was too far gone now. I picked up the keys of the old RX-100 that Ravi owned, and wore a jacket, waiting for the girl to finish. When it was over, the girl did look a lot better, color returning to her face slightly. I tried dragging her to her feet.

“Hey, stop handling me! You think I didn’t feel that before?”

I laughed, and received a sharp glance from the woman.

“You are drunk and I’m gonna take you home now.” I said.

“I am not drunk enough” She muttered to herself.

“You just puked your lungs out, you dumb woman. Come along now.” I said. Any other woman would have taken offence at the way I worded my sentence, but not this one. She smiled.

“If anyone tackles a drunken woman the way you did, they would certainly puke. What did you expect?”

She had a point there, I thought. She was disgusting, she had just puked, she had entered my room on the second floor via a window, and through all that she stood there with her head held high, looking at me as if it was my fault. I felt respect for her, but kept it to myself.

I convinced her to come downstairs, and the girl followed behind me, somehow finding another beer bottle. The party was raging through the night here, as I kick-started the bike. I motioned her to sit behind, and taking a huge gulp of her drink, she did, following me almost mindlessly.

I made towards Marathalli Bridge, where I knew a restaurant would be open. I thought it vital for the lady behind me to eat something, anything to get the stench of booze off her.

She was holding me close, and I knew it was more because of her imbalanced mind, than anything romantic. As the old bike groaned through the night, the wind blew her long hair back and I found the image quite pleasing through my rear view mirror.

“What’s your name?” I asked, bored of only listening to the wind whistle past me.

“Juhi. What’s yours?”

I didn’t answer. She wouldn’t remember me next morning; she was too drunk. And I had to leave permanently for my job tomorrow anyway. There was no point in exchanging pleasantries.

Now sitting across each other and almost force feeding her to eat the fried rice that most certainly tasted like sand, I observed Juhi more. She was drunk, yes, but beyond that, it seemed, in the way she carried her downcast eyes and her shoulders slack, she was sad. About what? I wondered.

“So you never told me. Who are you?” Juhi was saying presently, her mouth stuffed with rice.

“Deepak,” I remember saying, “electronics and com – “

“Oh god, you are terribly formal!”

She looked at me for some time, then pointed at me with her fork.

“But that’s not what I asked. Who are you?”

I considered that a moment. What did she mean? Then I shook my head. She was just drunk and possibly had not understood what I had been trying to say.

“I am Deepak.” I answered, now bemused.

She looked frustrated.

“Look. I am asking you who you are.”

“Well, then, you tell me. Who are you?” I counter questioned, infected by her frustration.

Juhi thought for a while. She looked somewhere far, and answered,

“I am a girl who just wants to live this final day as much as she can.”

Ah. So she was just sad that college had ended? How sweet, I thought wryly, for popular girls like her to miss college.

“So well,” she redirected her gaze at me, “Who are you?”

I didn’t have an eloquent answer as her. All that came to my mouth was the simple plain truth,

“I don’t know.”

She looked at me for a long moment and then she smiled.

“You can help me live tonight as much as I want.”

I do not know why I said what I said next.

“Why not?”

***

Back in the flight I could see Bangalore city approaching. Had time went by so fast? Juhi was sitting next to me still, and we had talked about a lot of things. Now Juhi seemed to talk more about me, for the look in her eye said as much. I prepared myself.

“So you know, I don’t remember much from the college farewell party.”

“You had excessive liquor that night” I found myself saying, and mentally reprimanded myself for doing so.

She laughed.

“Yes, I must have for I quit drinking after that day. I can’t remember for the life of me what happened. Do you?”

I remembered everything.

***

After deciding to party like no tomorrow with Juhi, we made a list. I never drank before, but with her I found myself buying a bottle of Old Monk, no less, and drinking it sitting in Gilly’s pub in Koromangala. After that, since Juhi wanted to learn riding a bike, I decided to take her on the huge empty tarmac of Mysore road. Deciding she was sufficiently safe here, I let her rip and to my pleasant surprise, she wasn’t half-bad and learned quickly. To Juhi’s riding experience we further added a cop chase, for we ran a light in the dead of the night and two fat city cops cursed behind us; Juhi laughed maniacally, while my heart failed twice every time she hit 100 on the speedometer.

Finally, it was 2:30 am, and we rested our two-wheeler near Brigade road.

“So what next?”, I asked her.

“You ever thought of getting a tattoo?”

I looked at her as if I had never heard of the existence of ink and needle. In all honesty, I was very scared of getting one and I was quite tired. How did she have the energy to go on? But she looked at me fervently and I said,

“But from where? It’s so late.”

But Juhi was already smiling.

I later learned that Juhi’s friend was a tattoo artist and also was a person who did not sleep at night. Luck had not favored me at all and I cringed in a chair as an elder woman inked on my left arm. I could not believe I was getting such a thing done; it was rebellious of Deepak, the electronics and communication engineer to do such a thing. But I had to admit, it felt like I was rediscovering myself, as if I was living a stolen life from someone way better than me.

Juhi looked admiringly when my tattoo was finished. I looked at it. Three hollow stars looked back at me, the ink art Juhi had chosen for me.

After leaving that place, we rode around aimlessly for a while in the bike. Juhi was hugging me close again, her head now buried in my jacket. I wondered whether even this time it was only because of her intoxication, or had a night spent in my company developed some romance, even if a slight one.

I looked at my left arm, now brandishing a spectacular tattoo. The wind blew past me in a torrent.

“Do you like it?” Juhi, her eyes red with sleeplessness and alcohol, asked.

I considered it.

“Yeah”, I answered lazily, stifling a yawn.

“Five star movies are great. But you are three stars.”

The needle hadn’t hurt me as much as her comment had. Is that why she had chosen this tattoo for me? As a reminder that I was not good enough? Now I felt as if I had been taken advantage of.

I took her back to my place. We had kept the building door locked (our landlord had given us strict instructions to keep the party outside in the clubhouse) and I fumbled for the keys. Once inside, I took her to my apartment and showed her to my bed. I anyway did not need to use it. I had to leave in an hour to catch my train, leaving behind Ravi, sleeping with an unknown woman in the next room, this apartment, where I had so many memories, the old bike, whose groaning noise I had grown so accustomed to, and the girl in front of me. I started packing, and Juhi watched me.

“Thank you.”

I looked up. I did not know what to make of that, so I shrugged and went back to my packing.

Behind me, Juhi continued,

“I came here through the window because the front door was locked.”

I did not answer.

“I wanted to go to the terrace.”

Juhi wasn’t making any sense. Must be the booze talking, I thought.

“Earlier today, my boyfriend dumped me.”

Now I looked up.

“I wanted to go to the terrace. I wanted to live as much as I could on my final day.”

She smiled brokenly.

I could not believe what she was saying. My eyes blurred. The thought of this world not having a girl such as her … it was unimaginable. The world needed her. Without her the world would be filled with guys like me. Guys who answered with their name and their occupation when asked ‘who are you?’. Without her the world wouldn’t be sane. Was she mad? How could she think of killing herself? The world needed her. I needed her.

I rushed to her and hugged her. I couldn’t quite let her go.

“…you dumb woman you…”

“Stop worrying, Deepak. I won’t do it. Not anymore. He isn’t worth it. I realize that now. You made me realize that. You see, some movies are five-stars. They are rare. They are amazing. But you can’t watch them more than once. You can’t lay your head back and relax and just enjoy them. You are a three-star average movie, Deepak. I could watch you my entire life. You are a better boyfriend than I could ever have.”

So I was her boyfriend, after all? I hugged her close anyway. I did not think I could love anyone so much, feel so much that it would hurt just to imagine them not being here. One day, and everything had changed. I wanted to stop time and lay there with her. But as she drifted to sleep, I slowly realized time would not stop. She would wake up, and the drinks would wear off. She would forget. But I won’t.

I kissed her forehead lightly, and she closed her eyes to sleep. She did not see me take my bag and walk out the front door.

***

I was striding across the Bangalore airport, with Juhi walking beside me. The city where I had spent a perfect night with the perfect woman. I smiled. If only she could remember me, I wished. But it was not to be. The time had come. We had to go our separate ways now.

Coming from Delhi, Bangalore felt uncomfortably hot. I took off my suit and rolled up my sleeves and I waved at a nearby taxi.

Juhi had stopped at her tracks. She was looking at me with her eyes wide.

“You.”, was all she said, her eyes fixed at the tattoo on my left forearm.

***