All the while I was in New York, she would come home all the time to be with my parents, eat their food, cook for them and take them shopping. While I was alone in a new city—my choice, of course—she was with them, giving them gifts on birthdays, taking them out to dinners on anniversaries and spendingspecial holidays with them. When I went back for Diwali the first time, it seemed as though she knew how they wanted to celebrate it more than I did. I didn’t come back for Holi and Maa and she made the most incredible-lookinggujias.
She was stealing my family from me.
I waited patiently for Tejal’s mask to slip, her real character to reveal itself. She couldn’t have been as nice as she was leading people to believe. She saw someone as naïve as Gaurav and then dug her claws into his back. Dating and managing Gaurav came with perks—there were sponsored holidays, free lunches at the best of restaurants, top-of-the-line clothes and skincare products.
I couldn’t take it any more. I told Gaurav what I felt about her: that she was a lying, conniving gold-digger who would break his heart. My words were laughed at. Nothing changed. Every day I would call and create a scene and they would be absolutely nonchalant about the looming threat. Worse, they told Tejal what I thought about her. Tejal called me and told me she loved my brother.
‘You’re not right for him,’ I said to Tejal one day.
And I said that without any justification. She insisted that time would prove me wrong.
I wish I hadn’t asked god to test her, because he did.
Gaurav’s descent began with alcohol—a couple of beers after every gaming convention. But he kept this habit a secret from Daksh, who had explicitly forbidden him from drinking and kept stringent tabs on him. Despite Daksh having stopped managing him, he would drop in to check if Gaurav was drinking.
Soon, Daksh started carrying a breath analyser with him. Gaurav promised to quit drinking. Gaurav quit drinking. But right at that time, he was introduced to cocaine and amphetamines by a tournament organizer. He told us laterthat the drug made him feel invincible, and happiness coursed within him of the kind he hadn’t experienced since the early days of gaming, where he would lose himself in his solo sessions for hours on end. A line every weekend became two, then two lines became four and soon he started doing it every day. Soon he was on to ecstasy, MDMA and crack cocaine. His performance dipped.
That’s when he got hooked on focus-enhancing drugs used to help people with mental diseases. A cocktail of drugs was all that Gaurav needed. Now, he was consuming a gram of cocaine, countless pills of Xanax and Adderall crushed together every day. It gave him immense confidence and intense focus for hours on end. No one tested him because of his clout. Tejal and Daksh didn’t notice it. For them, he had become a sixteen-year-old gamer who could stay up nights without an issue.
He became even better at gaming, but no one around him saw the price he was paying for it—his addiction, and the long, debilitating crashes that left him bedridden. Daksh, who was in the dark, thought Gaurav was pushing too hard and his body was pushing back. To Daksh, it seemed that all the hard work was finally taking its toll on Gaurav’s well-being.
When Tejal questioned Gaurav about the frequent cash withdrawals, Gaurav would lie through his teeth about buying some new equipment. She even started to ask Gaurav to step away from gaming for a few months, maybe a year, till he got some rest. Gaurav flatly refused all her requests.
By the time Daksh and Tejal figured it out, it was too late.
When Gaurav’s gaming career imploded, gone in a matter of seconds, his team, his fans, everyone deserted him. Only two people were standing with him, Daksh and Tejal. Since then and now, Tejal has stood steadfast, despite Gaurav’s drug-fuelled rants at her, the drug abuse, the neglect. She has handled Gaurav with a grace that he didn’t deserve.
‘Shall we leave?’ asks Tejal when we settle in her car. She puts the car into gear. ‘There’s water and some namkeen on the back seat. We can pick up some more on the way.’
Google Maps shows that Anantara Rehab Facility, Dehradun, is eight hours away. I know that none of us wants to stop. We just want to see Gaurav.
Tejal drives with the aggressiveness of an angry Gurgaon boy. Then I recall that she’s the younger sister of two older brothers. Both of them and her parents had warned her that they would stop talking to her if she didn’t leave Gaurav. She stopped talking to them in response and later bullied them into accepting her decision.
As we drive on the Malviya Nagar flyover, the roar of a motorcycle pierces the air. Then it starts to race us. Tejal notices it from the corner of her eye, so she floors the pedal. I watch the motorcycle become tiny in the rear-view mirror. But in a blink, the monstrous motorcycle with its attention-seeking, ear-splitting rumble is outside our window again. The driver raises his hand and waves at us and all I can think is that he will lose control of his gigantic, whirring machine—some kind of cruiser—and crash straight into us. As the driver pulls up his visor, our eyes lock in a moment of recognition. I can pick those eyes out in a crowd of a million.
‘Daksh,’ I mumble.
Maa–Papa turn to look at him.
‘Why does he have to drive these dangerous motorcycles?’ grumbles Maa.
‘His experience with cars hasn’t been any better,’ says Papa.
The air’s suddenly thick with tension. Everyone knows what’s on Papa’s mind. We wonder if he would say it. After a long pause, Papa tells Maa, ‘Your son tried to kill him in one of them.’
Tejal glares at Papa in the rear-view mirror.
‘Uncle, we will not talk about that today,’ she warns Papa in a stern tone that even I don’t use. ‘The doctors have strictly said he shouldn’t be reminded of his past behaviour.’
Papa sinks back into his seat.
‘It was not Gaurav,’ whispers Maa to herself, eyes pooling with tears. ‘It was the drugs.’
Papa looks out of the window towards Daksh. ‘Whatever it was. Daksh could have died.’
Daksh’s eyes meet mine. And I wonder if it is a smile I see in his eyes. He points ahead. Tejal nods as she gets his sign language.
‘He will meet us when we cross the toll.’
