20.
Aaditha
Worshipping at Lakshmi Bar
My fingers are in my hair, feeling my hairpiece, fixing what is already in place. I’m particularly fidgety this evening, more than usual.
I’ve worn this disguise for a while now. On most of these outings, I settle into it easily, like slipping into a second skin almost. But when my nerves fray, my hands betray me. They fidget, tugging at a collar or adjusting a sleeve, searching for something to anchor me. Tonight, unease clings to me like static. I can’t shake the irrational fear that my wig might somehow grow legs, march off on its own and unravel the careful illusion I’ve spent a good time maintaining.
I reach for my glass of red wine; it isn’t on point (considering we are paying ?150 for a 350 ml bottle, I have hopes). I stall, eyeing the Bloody Mary that Lavanya ordered.
‘Oyi, are you wasting everything today?’ Raju asks, his eyes wide and cheeks puffed. ‘You have to pay the bill!’
I’m not the only Nervous Nellie in the mix, but I’m sure as hell not letting Raju get away this time. He’s squirming, trying to dodge paying the bill again. Three years, countless drinks and dinners, and the only man in the quartet hasn’t paid a single time. Not once. I shoot him a look.
‘How much Komal drinks?’ He turns on Komal, a yoga guru who is friend and rival to Raju in the fitness industry. ‘It’s half a bottle already,’ he says, pointing at her large glass of gin and tonic.
‘You cannot be this obvious, not even you!’ I’m looking at Raju and laughing. ‘You are policing only because you are paying!’
‘I’ll take care of this,’ Lavanya says, winking at a delighted Raju and grabbing my glass of red at the same time.
Raju is on his feet, trying to high-five Lavanya, whose hands are already taken. Wine glass and onion pakora.
Tucked away in an unremarkable alley – with bric-a-brac shops, garishly refurbished pre-Independence passages and a couple of hole-in-the-wall fabric units – in Chamarajpet, six kilometres from MG Road, Lakshmi Bar is ouradda.
The location is ideal, a short distance from the lights of the main thoroughfares, posh bars and gourmet restaurants but close enough for all of us to get there and for Lavanya to drop us all back. Everyone, except for Raju, who always rides his bike home after eating most of the snacks, washed down with his trusty 650 ml beer.
Lakshmi Bar is Raju’s discovery. He had gone there with a college friend who lives in the area.
I roll my eyes at Komal the first evening we walk through that shabby doorway some three summers ago. A lopsided nameboard that hangs on a twisted, barely holding wire, with fading neon lights that cast a dim glow on the uneven pavement below, marking the entry point.
‘No judging,’ Komal whispers. That has been the spirit of these outings.
Lakshmi Bar, despite the assiduous planning, is where we let our hair down. It’s Khadus Komal’s getaway, where she doesn’t have to think about the chores and responsibilities she won’t talkabout. For Lavanya, it’s where she justis,not the heiress, not the businesswoman, not the warrior daughter in a Patil-versus-the-world stance. And me? No one notices the girl with the baseball cap worn backwards, from under which black-brown curls cascade.
The menu is wallet-friendly, and the drinks cost a fraction of what upscale counters charge.
The bar itself, the centrepiece of the room, is a rickety trestle, lined with bottles of affordable liquor and discoloured shot glasses. The furnishings, if you could call it that, have seen too many nights. Mismatched tables and chairs are scattered haphazardly across the room. There have been evenings when we had a table which we hung around but only gathered the chairs to sit on as the night grew old…
The clientele are mostly local traders. Their countenances, when illuminated by the lighting, appear familiar in that you have seen that face in this space before. They recognize us, too, especially Lavanya, the fashionista, who, despite turning out in an ordinary salwar kurta for our Lakshmi Bar outings, gets a lot of looks.
‘Is it really over with Vedveer?’ Komal asks. She tugs at my shirt, the sleeves of which I have rolled in a clump. ‘Actually over?’
It is Komal, of all the people in this mix, who read theTittleTattlepiece that literally screams that Vedveer and I are over. He’s given them good reason to believe!
Komal put it on the group:It’s time to sue these people. Look at that poll. 80 per cent think they’ve broken up.
Me:I’m so done with this relationship!
Komal:What do you mean?
A minute later, she called.
She is the first person I tell about Vedveer’s Bengaluru visit amonth ago. I didn’t mean to spill the tea, but I felt ready to talk about it in this circle. Later, I filled the blanks for Raju after our workout.
At first, I needed time to digest what had happened.
It came from left field, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Not to Alia, not to Lavanya. I was shocked and hurt; still am. Vedveer and I had closed some distance since January, and yes, a part of me still wanted to break it off, but at the very least, I thought he respected me.
