The Benefit Season (17 page)

‘
Maa, don’t say that
please’, I beg her.

‘
Yes! I discovered them
together, in my own house, in my own bed! And all the while I had
been suckling you in the other room! At that very moment I packed
up our stuff and left with you for my mom’s place. And that’s where
I brought you up, all alone! And now you’re following your father’s
footsteps! What a fine woman she is! And you find her plain! She’s
the best thing to have happened to you Arjun, and you are
dumb-blind not to see it!’

‘
Maa! What happened to
dad? You said he died in battle?’

‘
Yeah, good for everyone
he died soon after; killed in Kargil; unmourned, unwept and unsung!
The poor ass-chaser- he got nothing out of it, for she left him too
soon after- except perhaps the satisfaction of screwing up
single-handedly so many innocent lives! I brought you up with the
right values- and I thought what a fine young man I had. I thought
I’d done a good job, but you shame me Arjun, you shame me
terribly!’

‘
I’m sorry mom. Please
don’t cry mamma. I love you mamma. Please I’ll never let you down,
I promise! You trust me? Come on mamma stop it’.

‘
You men with your glib
tongues!’

‘
No, I promise
ma’.

‘
You do? You will love her
and take care of her and your kids and never desert your
family?’

‘
Never mamma’!

She quietens down somewhat, and keeps
blowing into something. Finally she composes herself and says,’
look Arjun; I didn’t want it to be like this. I’d hoped I’d be able
to break it gently to you, once you are well settled and older. I’m
sorry, please forgive your mother- she’s old and loses it
sometimes. It’s been hard, so hard bringing you up. I’m sorry’.

She starts crying again. I’m myself in
tears. Tears come easily to me- having been brought up in a house
full of divers aunts and womenfolk. We sob together for a while,
comforted in each other’s company. My heart goes out to her, what a
terrible fate! And she never remarried, to take care of me no
doubt.

‘
Ma, take care of
yourself. I promise you I will never cause you hurt again, I swear!
Now please stop crying. I will be home as soon as
possible.’

‘
No you stay and do your
job. I’ll be fine. We’ll take care of the engagement that’s coming
up. I don’t want more work on my hands’.

‘
Ma, I’ll look for another
job- I know enough people in this business now’.

‘
Fine, but do it later,
after you’ve settled down’.

‘
Ok, ma, but I’ll spread
the word’.

‘
Good boy, I love you. Be
good’.

‘
Bye ma’.

I couldn’t sleep that night. That my mom had
been treated in this way sent a scalding spike through my chest.
With a rude jolt the mind opened to the consequences of my
irresponsible behavior. It wasn’t like me at all- what had become
of me? I didn’t recognize the beefy man in the mirror- he had a
hard, reckless look about him. I had to extract myself from this
dangerous situation as delicately, and firmly as possible, and
return to the familiar world of a nine-to-fiver with the wife and
bucket-loads of toddlers and nappies in tow.

ϖ

Chapter
8

Diu

(December 2013)

‘
Tell me what happened
between us that day in the mangroves was a mistake’, Monal asks, in
a voice that expects, and commands a
no
.

‘…
A lovely mistake?’ she
pleads, a while later.

She had proposed via SMS that as two
responsible adults we should meet and discuss things over, and I
had agreed. I could neither push her thought out of my mind nor
admit it; either way I felt guilty. For the first time, as office
colleagues are supposed to be, we are seated at a respectable
distance across her solid mahogany office desk, our paws to
ourselves, she looking me in the eye, I looking me in the tips of
me shiny shoes.

‘
I agree we fucked up’, I
nearly choke on the words; ‘ I mean we messed up- big
time’.

‘
Hmm’. She swivels on her
chair some, the castor wheels and her brain creaking.

‘
There’s nothing more to
be said then’. She rises and turns her back on me, looking out the
tall, black steel framed windows at the Arabian Sea beyond. ‘Or is
there?’ she turns back; a hopeful look flickers across her eyes and
is gone before you can catch it.

I cross and uncross the shiny shoed feet. ‘
I am sorry; it’s entirely my fault. I got carried away; it was like
I became possessed. Please forgive me for causing this shame and
pain to everybody. I … I’ll put in my papers; I think it’s best for
everyone that I should leave.’

‘
No, you don’t have to do
that Arjun! Keep the professional away from your personal life. I’m
equally to be blamed! I didn’t resist- yes; I was possessed too.
Look, it happens all the time around here; when you throw
good-looking people together at odd hours of the day, sparks are
bound to fly- it’s nature, it’s human instinct, it’s corporate
culture- you can’t wish it away’.

‘
Look Monal, no one is
going to let me get away with this. Where I come from- it just
doesn’t work.’

‘
It works wherever you
have a warm-blooded man and woman, Arjun’, she says, with the
finality of her usual curt business-like tone, as if she was
endorsing a remark on file. ‘What do you think; your Aarti isn’t
having fun on the side- she looks so alive, man, or my husband too?
Who are we fooling, man? Come on, snap out of it! Just as long as
we don’t get too attached to each other, or let it affect our
professional equation, let nature take its course. But just make
sure it’s kept under the wraps, and don’t start taking me for
granted, and don’t go boasting about it at the bar. It’ll come back
to me if you do. Are we good?’

‘
Monal, please…listen to
me… I’m about to be…’

She has already pressed the buzzer and her
secretary’s head has popped in the doorway. ‘Sit down. Take notes’,
she tells her, and turns away from me.

The secretary, her brows raised
questioningly, smiles, expecting me to leave.

I excuse myself and close the door softly
after me.

So that’s how it’s going to be; I’ll carry
on with the “perfectly natural” affair, keeping in with fine
corporate traditions! It’s human instinct, just a case of an
unrelenting piece of bone- what the heck! What is my problem?
Making love to the best tits in town, while the next best keep your
house and raise your children- dare I ask for more? Success at the
workplace is assured, so is a warm hearth, but what does that make
me- if not a thief and a lowlife?

I am fallen, but not fallen twice. My mom is
not going to announce, ‘let the world see what a fine whore has
sprung forth from my thighs!’

I return to my desk and draft my resignation
letter and replace it in the drawer. As soon as Aarti and I are
settled I intend to make a career switch.

ϖ

I put the phone on silent mode and ignore
all her messages and calls. I visit her office only when her
secretary summons me personally. Even then I take my clerk along on
some pretext or the other to save me from a dressing down by the
boss.

‘
You are avoiding me
Arjun.’ She says one day after shooing my witness out of her
office. ‘ You don’t get to avoid me- I avoid you. ‘

‘
No
ma’am
- yes
ma’am
’.

The word jars her. I can call her madam, as
my mama would put it, if she prefers. But she doesn’t lose any more
time in chiding me about it.

‘
I get the picture- big
and clear. You want to keep it professional between us from now on,
so be it. But take my calls and be where you’re asked to be, on
time’.

‘
Alright’.

She rambles about this and that, her mind
somewhere else. I don’t think it’s about sex with me that’s
distracting her; that she can have with far better men of her
choosing anytime, and away from office too; it’s so unprofessional,
so unlike her! I think it’s about the control you must feel by
cheating on your man with a guy forced to cheat on his woman. The
thrill of being able to hold many lives to ransom at will!

‘
Your figures are coming
flat in the last two quarters Mr. Arjun’, she says, keeping the
ball in play.

I shift in my chair. ‘Those are not my
reports you are looking at ma’am. Mine are in the dustbin- you were
tossing them in when we got in’.

‘
Oh’, she says, without
shifting her gaze. ‘You are keeping track of my garbage Mr. Arjun?
What does your report say then’, she asks, a little resignedly,
already knowing what to expect.

‘
A hefty 40% increase in
revenues, two more IPL cricketers in the bag, with a gymnast to
boot- Rohini Bhardwaj, first Indian American to medal in the
Olympics’.

‘
What will a gymnast fetch
us in eyeballs? Keep your mind on the business; we are not in
charity here- earning a living for obscure artists.’

‘
We also make a hefty cut
off their income. In fact I wonder if they make any money at all,
after we have finished, and the taxes. And she has quite a
following in the diaspora abroad. It makes people abroad sit up and
take notice of our company. Tom called in personally to compliment
me on the choice. He said it was nice strategy’.

‘
Really, since when has
Tom started calling up the junior staff directly? And why haven’t
you kept me informed?’

‘
I did make a mention of
it in my report ma’am,’ I tell her, nodding towards the sheaf of
papers popping out of her crapper.

‘
So now it’s my fault- I
don’t read the reports’.

I look down and exam the lines on my hands.
I wonder where I’m headed.

‘
Is it?’ she repeats,
irritated with my silence.

I look up at her. Her finely chiseled
features are creased with unhappiness. If she weren’t such a man
she would have cried.

‘
I…I didn’t mean it that
way’. I shift uncomfortably in the annoying little chair whose faux
leather sticks to your pants and gives out a farting sound, or the
sound of bubble wraps bursting whenever you move.

In spite of herself she giggles suddenly at
the embarrassing noise and my discomfiture. I smile weakly too.
Knowing Monal, I think she doesn’t change the chairs deliberately;
she must enjoy the mortification caused to her staff.

‘
What did you mean Arjun?’
she says after composing herself. ‘Whatever do you mean most of the
time? You make the craziest love to a woman deep in the wild and
expect no after-effects thereafter? You get pangs of guilt and you
feel you can simply quit? Are you a quitter Mr. Arjun? What about
the other person? Don’t you owe me an explanation? You were man
enough to screw me, now you aren’t man enough to face me? I didn’t
think you would be so cold and cowardly… and heartless. I’m sure
you would have totted up your conquest score and moved
on?’

‘
I feel you. I can only
apologize deeply for what has happened’.

‘
Don’t apologize for a
beautiful thing Arjun. I have no regrets; happy moments are too few
and far between; savor them when you chance upon them’.

‘
What can I do…what do you
want of me, Monal? You are married; I am about to be. It’s an
impossible situation; I can’t see it going anywhere’.

‘
No one’s taking anything
anywhere. I’m sure both of us are okay where we already at. While
there are not many expectations, the least we can do is be civil to
each other.’

‘
Yes, I agree to
that’.

‘
And a little more than
civil sometimes…’ she winks, back in control, pushing now that I’m
softening up. ‘…When the call of the wild is strong and the will is
weak’.

Am I okay with that? There seems to be a
tinge of infiniteness to the proposal, a faint sense of the
perpetuity of my lease. But I am going to give the wild a wide
pass, yessir; the familiar and the beaten path is where you’ll find
me from now on, thumbing the rule book and receiving the word!

I shall not stray, or shall I stray, who
knows?

I shall be strong, or will I be weak; it can
only be either.

I will say yes or I will say no, when
temptation comes knocking; let us see.

ϖ

I am with my team in my office, giving them
a presentation on the targets for the year when my cellphone starts
ringing. The ringtone is of a wild Asian woman in the throes of a
bloodcurdling orgasm. The phone vibrates hotly and a call video of
large quivering boobs comes on the screen. The screen announces it
is Monal calling, (again, for the umpteenth time that morning). I
forgot to put my phone on silent mode before the meeting began.

Preeti, my assistant with the chubby cheeks
and dimple chin, says innocently, ‘sir, Ms. Monal calling’. The
room titters and people exchange looks of amusement and
surprise.

I am shaken, not a little, quite a bit. But
I manage to keep a straight face and utter a profound,’ who?’

‘
Ms. Monal,
sir…ma’am…boss?’

‘
So? You should leave your
phone out when we are in a meeting’.

‘
Sir, it’s not mine, it’s
yours’.

‘
That’s not my phone’, I
say, a little hot under the collar. ‘Whose is it?’