Read The Bestseller She Wrote Online
Authors: Ravi Subramanian
The Bestseller She Wrote (38 page)
He looked back. Everyone was walking down behind them: everyone except Sanjay. He waited for just that extra second before he ran back to the coffee shop. Sanjay was sitting there, staring into thin air. Aditya’s entry interrupted his reverie.
‘Not coming down?’ Aditya asked him
‘How does it matter to you? Just get the fuck out of here.’
‘Well the call is yours, Sanjay. I just felt it will look a bit weird if you sit here alone. There are a number of people from National Bank in the crowd. But as I said, the call is yours,’ he said and turned and walked away from Sanjay towards the main door of the café.
‘So you fucked me over, today as well,’ Sanjay’s desolate voice rang out. Aditya turned back.
‘Sorry. Me?’ He looked shocked. ‘I thought that line was supposed to be mine.’
‘You must be very happy to see me like this, isn’t it Aditya?’ Sanjay whispered. ‘Once a loser, always a loser.’
Aditya looked surprised. ‘So everything I said. My hypothesis was true.’
‘You have screwed me at every stage in your life, Aditya, every stage. You even snatched my first love away from me,’ ranted Sanjay.
‘She was never with you, Sanjay. Maya’s association with you was always as a friend. She even clarified that to you that night when you proposed to her below the water tank.’ After a pause he added, ‘Years ago.’
Sanjay ignored him and continued, ‘And when Diana and I tried to explore a relationship, you messed up her reputation and her career. Not only that, you also made sure that our relationship would not work out. She will never come back to me now.’ He had his head in his hands. ‘Helping you get a job in National Bank was a mistake. Life away from you was so peaceful. I had gotten over Maya, forgotten all that happened on campus . . . and then you came roaring back. Letting you guys back into my life was a big mistake. You have taken away everything that I had. Shreya, too, used me to get to you. The moment you came into her life, she dropped me like a hot potato. The Goa trip was where she finally called it off. The moment you started indulging her, she walked away from me. At every stage you have messed with my life, Aditya. You think that after bringing me to this state, you will live in peace? You will rot in
hell, Aditya, you will rot in hell. I curse you today, you will rot in hell.’ Sanjay stormed out of the room, down to the Crossword store.
Aditya smiled a wry smile: a smile which hid the emotional turbulence he was going through, on having lost someone close.
The emcee’s voice suddenly rang loud and clear. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, and now for the big event that all of you have been waiting for. Please welcome on stage . . .’ The voice was drowned in the applause that followed.
Aditya strode down to the venue. It was showtime.
84
M
AYA WAS WATCHING
the event on live streaming. She had tears in her eyes when Aditya publicly apologised for his relationship with Shreya. Maya realised that he meant every word of what he said. Owning up to a mistake in front of everyone is not easy and only a person with good intent and high levels of regret can do it. But then, something was holding her back. She had been wronged and a cheating spouse can leave a trail of trauma and devastation for the cheated one. It was because of this that Maya was unwilling to forget and forgive. That was when Dr Krishnan’s email popped up on her screen and she clicked on it.
‘
I might lose my job for this,’ Dr Krishnan had written in the mail. ‘But I am convinced there is no alternative. I am watching the live streaming. Ever since you came to the hospital for a check-up, Maya, I have been wondering how it is that the best couple that I have ever met, fell apart—a couple that lives and breathes together, a couple that even Ebola couldn’t separate, a couple that till a few months back was a model couple. I couldn’t bear to see them fall apart.
While you were in hospital, Aditya did confide in me. In fact it was after that, that he requested to be allowed into your room, a day before all of us expected you to die. Your chances of survival were almost zero. Aditya wanted to see you in your room, alone. Breaking protocol, I allowed him. I could have lost my job for doing that. It was a risk I took. Today while seeing Aditya speak, I remembered that confession. The confession made in front of a dying Maya. The isolation ward is under CCTV surveillance. I had specifically got the security tapes containing Aditya’s visit to your room, sent to me, because had anyone else seen it, I would have got into trouble. Aditya’s speech today reminded me of that. And that’s the reason I am sending this to you. The guy genuinely loves you. I have seen it in his eyes, Maya. I can’t ask you to get together with Aditya again, but all I can do is request you to see this short video once. After that, take whatever call you feel is appropriate.
Please respect my intent and do not share this video with anyone. I will find it hard to explain. And by the way, the day you came for the check-up, Aditya called me to confirm if everything was normal. Don’t know why, but just thought that you should know he cares.
Maya clicked on the video link. In no time, it started playing. She saw herself on the screen, lying in one corner of the room, sick and immobile. And then the door to her room opened and someone walked in. When she looked closely, she realised it was Aditya. She heard everything Aditya had said that day, and by the time the video went back on loop, she had tears in her eyes.
When she saw Aditya fall on his knees and beg her to come back, she felt desperate. She loved him. It was clear that he really wanted her back. All along, her feeling of rejection coupled with disbelief over the fact that Aditya, who could do nothing wrong, had hurt her so terribly, had held her back. But now the public apology and more importantly the video moved her. When Aditya had confessed to her in the ward, he could have had no ulterior motive to tell her that he would come back to her, for she had been near death. He was not even sure that Maya could hear everything that he was saying. Yet he had said what he said. He had promised her that he would call off everything and be with her and Aryan. He had pleaded with her to come back to him, for both him and their son. Dr Krishnan’s words rang in her ears. ‘There is more strength in forgiveness than in walking away.’
She made a choice.
She tried calling Aditya but couldn’t get through. Hurriedly she dialled the driver and asked him to take the car out. She got into the car and rushed to Crossword Kemps Corner. The rain had stopped. The heavy drizzle earlier had had its impact and kept most of the crowd away from the roads. The driver was able to zip across. Trying to hold back her tears, Maya watched the live streaming all along the way. She didn’t want the driver to see her sobbing.
When Aditya ended his speech and walked out, she was still half a kilometre away from Crossword. She was stuck at the signal. She calculated that it would take her six minutes more if she walked. It might take less than that if the traffic cleared, but that seemed less likely. She kicked off her sandals and stepped out of the car. Barefoot, Maya walked; walked at a pace she had never walked before. The earphones connected to her phone kept her in sync with what was going on at Crossword. In five minutes, she reached the Kemps Corner flyover which was right alongside the road where the store was. She could see a crowd outside the store. And then she saw him: surrounded by television cameras, media, and fans. She slowed down. He was not going anywhere. She walked slowly and within a minute she was standing right outside the store. Not too far from where Aditya was. She stood there silently, patiently waiting for him to get away from the crowd surrounding him.
He had erred. But he had displayed the courage to accept his error of judgment in front of the whole world. He wouldn’t be doing that if he didn’t care for her and Aryan. She had forgiven him. She wanted him back—back in her life for good.
Aditya looked up, as if something had alerted him to her presence. He saw her. He pushed aside the microphone thrust in his face by a television channel and walked towards her. She stood rooted, tears in her eyes.
The water in his eyes breached the banks as he walked up to Maya. Hugging her, he stood there silently. Thunder and lighting lit up the skies. The dark clouds opened up, their resistance on the wane. It began to pour. Everyone around rushed for cover, everyone except Aditya and Maya. They stood rooted, in each other’s arms, probably hoping for the rain to wash out any remnants of the hangover of the past. When a penitent Aditya tightened his hug and said, ‘I am sorry, Maya. Please give me one more chance,’ Maya had no choice. Tears started flowing incessantly from her eyes. Her arms tightened their clasp around Aditya. The intensity of water pouring from the skies paled in comparison to the water that had crashed the banks of Maya’s eyes.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said.
Epilogue
Maya and Aditya got back together. Aditya left his job with National Bank and joined his wife in her quest to make education available for all. They now run a school and have focused their efforts on educating students from the economically deprived strata of society.
After pulling back the book from the market because of plagiarised lines, it took Aditya a fortnight to put the sanitised version of the book back in stores. The controversy spurred by the Aditya-friendly cover story in Brunch fuelled repeat sales of the book. True to his word, Aditya donated every rupee earned from the book towards Ebola care. Kiwi too did the same. In return Aditya offered his next book to Kiwi for an extremely low advance. Kiwi was only too happy to oblige. Aditya is writing his next book and is content spending his time with Aryan and Maya. He continues to be India’s top-selling author by a margin and is now enjoying his new-found freedom from a boring banking job. Maya was extremely happy that Aditya was back. So was Aryan. Life for them got back on track.
Sanjay resigned from National Bank. He was smart enough to understand that had he not quit he would have been sacked. His tryst with Shreya, his fraudulent expense billing and the way he manipulated Aditya, didn’t go down well with the management. Tim was furious and made sure that the CEO got to know about the conversation at Moshe’s. That didn’t leave Sanjay with much of a choice. He tried for reconciliation with Aditya, but it was too late. Aditya had moved on and not for a moment did he look back and try to reconcile with Sanjay. He had betrayed his trust and tried to break up his family and Aditya had decided to make sure that their paths never crossed again.
Diana pulled the plug on her relationship with Sanjay. His clandestine affair with Shreya, his pining for Maya and his manipulations to get his way, created an irreparable rift between the two of them. The day she walked out of Crossword Kemps Corner after the book launch was the last she ever saw of him. Career for her has taken a positive turn. After Aditya left, she became the head of Branch Banking for National Bank and has been doing a fabulous job. The CEO loves her commitment so much that she is now spoken of as the next head of Retail for National Bank. She is still in touch with Maya and Aditya.
Sunaina got married to Melwin and settled down in Mumbai. She works for
Times of India
, the newspaper that carried the story on Shreya and Aditya. She has consciously stayed away from the paid media, and is trying her luck at becoming a serious focused journalist of substance.
Spurred by the controversy of her dalliance with Aditya, Shreya’s book went on to become a big hit—the biggest sales clocked by a debut author in a long long time. It was sad that the fact that the book was actually written fabulously was overshadowed by the noise surrounding it. Shreya became an instant celebrity, a superstar. After the book launch, the media hounded her. She got projected as a homewrecker. At work too, she didn’t get the respect that she felt she deserved. Sanjay’s exit reflected poorly on her. Tim knew about the issues between Aditya, her and Sanjay. Over a period of time, the porous walls of the organisation came into play and people started talking about her past. All this in general and specifically Aditya walking away from her in the manner that he did, impacted her negatively. She lost interest in writing. Whenever people would ask her about her next book, she would avoid answering the question. If pushed to a corner, she would say, ‘The story finds the writer. When a great story will find me, my next book will take shape.’ It was only she who knew that she would never ever be able to write another story. Her debut novel,
The Girl from Chhattisgarh
, would remain the only bestseller she wrote.
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