She slowly pulls the helmet over her deep black hair, watching herself in the mirror as she fastens the buckle beneath her chin. The black carbon fibre shimmers in the sunlight. I want to look away, but like every other time, I fail. Despite my trying, my imagination runs amok, and suddenly I’m thinking about us on a ride together through the European countryside, the sound of the engine roaring beneath us, her arms wrapped around me and her body pressed tightly against mine.
Fuck.
Here we go again.
I had thought of avoiding it this time. The inescapable trap that is Aanchal.
Every time Aanchal comes into my life, it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope. I see her in an entirely new light. This time she is softer, more relaxed. Her beauty has acquired grace, strength and wisdom. She has changed. In the past few days, I have seen her every day take long walks around our building for hours on end. Then pick out fruit from the nearby market, and in the evenings slowly sip a hot cup of tea on the balcony with her parents and Gaurav.
She’s absolutely stunning in this new serenity.
Today, as my eyes linger on her lips, the curve of her neck, I feel time winding back. I feel the want for her return. Despite my efforts to banish her from my thoughts over the last two years, Jagath, Zeenath and even Gaurav had sensed the inevitable—they knew she’d cross my mind again. As my relationship with Amruta started to crumble, thoughts of Aanchal crept in more and more. I soon learnt about her split from Saket, yet I still tried to keep her out of my mind. I was oblivious to the fact that I was building a dam against an unstoppable force. It’s built, and built, and built, and when I finally saw her again, all my defences crumbled, and I was drowning in thoughts of her. Basic, so basic, Daksh, I kept telling myself. A fucking cliché.
But the nature of my desire for her has changed.
Once, I would have wanted to ravage her, hold her by the neck and take her right here with her exhorting me to fuck her harder. But now I know, our kiss would be of a different nature. Soft and unhurried, yet infinitely more powerful. We had fucked earlier; it was pure passion, but this time it would be an act oflove that could stop the world from spinning on its axis. If it would be anything, that is.
‘You’re a little late in doing all this, no?’ she says.
‘I’m finally catching up with you guys, that’s what,’ I answer.
‘I never got a tattoo.’
‘But that’s the thing. You had the option. Like you guys, my twenties were my thirties. A bad marriage, kids. So my thirties are going to be my twenties where I do stupid stuff like this.’
‘And of all the things you could do, you pick up driving a motorcycle and annoying your neighbours with a broken silencer?’
‘You’re not going to be a neighbour for long. I’m guessing you’re going back to the US?’
‘I have already mailed my resignation letter,’ she says with a smile. ‘I’m going to be around.’
‘Not unless you’re coming to Europe,’ I tell her.
‘What?’
I point to the motorcycles behind her. ‘That’s Jagath and Zeenath’s motorcycle. And that’s mine. We are riding across Europe for the next three months.’
She looks at me to ascertain if I’m serious. ‘One cliché after another. Is this where the podcast money’s going?’
‘We will be in hostels, and eating out of supermarkets. It will be cheap, it will be awesome.’
‘You have money, why skimp?’
‘Minimalism? Maybe? I don’t know,’ I tell her. ‘Just gives me a kick to know I can be happy with the little things I have. It’s a game.’
‘It doesn’t sound like a good game.’
‘Do you want to eat papdi chat?’
‘What?’
‘It was a simple question.’
‘Do you?’
Manoj butts in. ‘I thought you would stay till your
bike’s fixed.’
