Page 3 of 12 Years: My Messed-up Love Story

‘I asked for her card.’

‘Fine. So, you’re keen. That was my original point anyway. You like her.’

‘I just wanted to add her to the broadcast list. The bigger our list, the better.’

‘Really? Why don’t you go up to all these other men in the bar right now and add them to the mailing list?’

I threw up my hands in frustration.

‘Bro, I just had my first show. Let me enjoy that? And you’re right. I did ask for her card. That was a weak moment. She’s history. Fuck it,’

I said. I took Payal’s card and put it in Mudit’s shirt pocket.

‘Here, you keep it,’

I said.

‘Or better still, just throw it.’

‘Shh,’

Mudit said, placing Payal’s card back in my hand.

‘Keep it. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Not everyone is Raashi.’

I covered my ears.

‘Don’t take her name. Please.’

‘Fine. Anyway, let me check on some of the other guests. You enjoy the success of your first show. Okay?’

I stood at the bar, holding my tequila glass in one hand and Payal’s card in the other.

Payal Jain

Analyst

Blackwater Capital

I ran my finger over her embossed name a few times. The card had her Nariman Point office address. It also had her email, office landline number and mobile number.

Should I message her?

‘No, absolutely not,’

a stern voice screamed inside my head.

‘You were great,’

a girl’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

I turned around to see a young couple standing in front of me.

‘That bit about the school plays was good. I was also Bheem in all the plays in school,’

the guy said. He was well-built, six feet two and many more inches wider than normal people.

‘Welcome to the Bheem club.’

I laughed.

‘Can I take a selfie with you?’

the girl said.

Wow, my first-ever selfie request.

Mudit sat a few tables away from me with some of his regular customers. He looked at me and smiled, lifting his glass to show his support for me.

Maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit of my life was working out after all.

‘Listen, Kushal. She needs to sign the final agreement now. I’ve agreed to everything,’ I said.

My lawyer, Kushal Devraj, sat in his drab office in San Francisco, with a virtual background of a beach on our late-night Zoom call. He wore a suit, making him look totally out of place compared to the fake tropical paradise behind him. Despite my terrible mood, I wondered if I could put together a comedy set on Zoom calls. On workaholics like Kushal whose idea of a vacation was changing their virtual background on Zoom.

‘She’s refusing to sign it. She wants more. Eighty per cent of all your assets if you want to forgo the monthly alimony.’

‘Eighty? Has she gone mad? We already agreed to sixty-six. We had a verbally locked deal.’

I sat on the ledge of my living-room window, in my one-bedroom apartment in Pali Hill, Bandra. I took a sip of my black coffee, which I shouldn’t have, not at midnight. The caffeine and this high-stress divorce-settlement call would surely keep me up all night.

‘Let’s discuss what happened,’

Kushal said.

‘What? Nothing happened. She’s being a greedy bitch. She’s squeezing me because she knows I want to get this over with as soon as possible.’

‘Really? Nothing happened? Try to remember, Saket,’

Kushal said. Even through his 480p laptop webcam, I could see his judgemental looks.

‘I have no clue what happened. You told me she’s entitled to fifty per cent of all my assets, plus a monthly alimony.’

‘Yes, that’s Californian law.’

‘We decided to give her sixty-six per cent of the assets, in lieu of a monthly alimony. Because I don’t want to deal with her ever again. That’s the deal we agreed to sign and submit in court. I’ll get my divorce without going to trial. I’ll be poor, but free.’

‘Yes.’

‘And now she suddenly wants eighty per cent? After we agreed to a sixty-six per cent deal? Tell me, is she a greedy bitch or not?’

‘I cannot comment on a statement like that, Saket. However, I understand from Ms Raashi’s attorney that there has been some provocation and a breach of the agreed-upon conduct from your side.’

‘What is that supposed to mean? Oh, fuck,’

I said as I spilled some coffee on my laptop.

‘Language, Saket.’

‘Bro, my coffee just spilled all over my keyboard. If this laptop conks off, I can’t work. I don’t have the money to get a new one. Because you’re ensuring we give everything to her. So, pardon my language, and wait a minute.’

I placed my laptop on its side on the window ledge to make the coffee drip off the keyboard without any of it going into the circuit inside. Then I ran to the kitchen and came back with a washcloth. I wiped the laptop and resumed talking to Kushal.

‘What provocation?’ I said.

‘Did you communicate with Ms Raashi last week?’

Kushal said, tilting his head.

‘And why am I seeing you sideways?’

‘I am draining the coffee out of my laptop. Anyway, I had a brief WhatsApp chat with her. She wanted to know if I had paid the property tax for our, sorry, now her, her California house. She’ll get the house. She’ll live there. But I need to keep paying the property tax.’

‘Until the settlement is done, yes. Did you converse with her about anything else?’

‘I asked her why she hadn’t signed the settlement agreement yet.’

‘Why? Didn’t we agree to speak about the settlement only through each other’s attorneys?’

Kushal said.

‘I know, Kushal,’

I said, wiping the keyboard one final time before straightening the laptop.

‘But I’m getting impatient.’

‘Did you, at any point, use abusive language during said chat?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure, Saket?’

I opened my phone and scrolled through my chats with Raashi.

‘Okay, at one point, I did use some strong words,’ I said.

‘Strong as in?’

‘I said, “Go fuck yourself, Raashi.”’

‘Come on, Saket,’

Kushal said, raising his voice, unusual for his perennially calm personality.

‘Sorry, Kushal. I got carried away. She said I could not bully her into signing the agreement. I wasn’t bullying her. I was just urging her.’

‘Well, she has the right to interpret it as threat and intimidation. With use of abusive language suggesting harm.’

‘Harm? What harm?’

‘The term you used can be seen as a suggestion of physical harm.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me? It’s hardly even abuse. Ever been in an engineering college, Kushal? Or any Indian college?’

‘No. I went to Harvard. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, if she refuses to sign, forces you to take this to trial and presents this chat as evidence of threat and abuse, it won’t end well for you.’

‘It’s not ending well for me anyway.’

‘Saket, if you want this done, stay away from her.’

‘She messaged me first.’

‘Yes. But the law protects her. Not you. Not as much at least.’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘We can discuss the fairness of gender-specific laws another time. For now, what do you suggest we do?’

‘Meaning?’

‘She wants eighty per cent. And her attorney knows they’ve got us.’

‘By the balls?’

‘I will ignore that comment. Are you okay with eighty per cent? I can negotiate a bit, bring it down maybe to seventy-five, but not beyond that.’

‘Let’s go to trial. This is just wrong.’

‘No, Saket. A trial’s not going to be good for you. I’ll bill you more and make more money in a trial. But, no, let’s not do that.’

‘Then?’

‘I suggest you let her have it. I’ll try for seventy-five.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Is that a yes? I can go back to them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, anything else you want me to convey? To her attorney or Ms Raashi?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What?’

‘Tell them to go fuck themselves.’

I cut the Zoom call and slammed my laptop shut.

I stared outside my window.

The trees below my fifth-floor apartment glowed in the fluorescent light of the streetlamps.

I could hear a few cars and autos rumble past on Nargis Dutt Road below.

Bandra was where the movie stars lived, the more famous ones in mansions with staff rooms bigger than my entire apartment.

Technically, I couldn’t afford to stay in this neighbourhood.

Raashi had gouged out most of my savings, and my comedy career barely covered auto fares around Bandra, let alone allow me to breathe the same air as Aamir Khan and Ranbir Kapoor.

But I needed a tiny haven in this otherwise-crazy, cramped city.

And when I found this five-hundred-square-foot apartment in this thirty-year-old building with a crumbling exterior, it became my home, office and pity-party pad.

It was less than one-tenth the size of my Bay Area house—sorry, Raashi’s Bay Area house.

But the best part about my Bandra place was the cover of the trees below, visible from my living-room window.

It hid the traffic and the concrete jungle beneath and, sometimes, even my pain and sorrow.

Hi, I’m Saket Khurana, I’m thirty-three and my life is going nowhere.

I’m a failed husband, a career quitter and a not-so-great stand-up comic.

I spend my days either working on my jokes or my divorce settlement—which is also a kind of joke, anyway.

I could take you into a full flashback. I could tell you what happened between Raashi and me, how our marriage broke down. But it would be my biased version of things, so there’s no point in doing all that.

Our marriage fell apart four years ago after I discovered she was having an affair with her so-called family friend an.

‘rakhi brother’—the latter being a term so abused in India that it should be banned. The rakhi brother and rakhi sister had apparently started their antics even before our marriage. And as it turns out, they never really stopped even after Raashi married me.

Again, this is my version of things. If you ask Raashi, she’ll tell you that her affair with the rakhi brother wa.

‘not what I think it was’. It was more abou.

‘her finding herself’. I’ve never really understood how some people ‘find themselves’

by fucking another person, but let’s leave that aside for now.

When I confronted Raashi about the affair, she claimed that she felt lonely and alienated in San Francisco and couldn’t fit into its NRI culture. She felt that I neglected her since I was always busy with work. Several thousand dollars’

worth of marriage therapy later, we agreed to give the marriage another shot. But Raashi continued to keep in contact with the rakhi brother—in more ways than one. Meanwhile, I sank deeper into depression. Alcohol became my best friend.

On a boys’

trip to Vegas, I got smashed. I woke up in a hotel room with hookers that I may or may not have called. Anyway, someone in our boys’

gang snitched and Raashi found out about the hookers. Another round of hell ensued. I tried the same I-was-finding-myself argument to justify why I had hired a Colombian whore who didn’t speak English. Somehow, though, this line doesn’t work as well for guys as it does for girls. I apologized multiple times, but it made no difference. Raashi hired lawyers to get a good divorce settlement and squeeze the last red blood cell out of me.

California law worked in her favour anyway.

Long story short, here we are. She gets eighty per cent of everything. The total wealth I had was three million dollars. Raashi will get .4 million. I get six hundred thousand dollars. Net of legal and other fees, I’ll be left with half a million. It’s still decent money, especially in India, where it translated to about two and a half crore rupees at current exchange rates. I could rent a small place, invest what I had and then make some money from comedy. It would be enough. That was the rough plan in my head.

‘You know what, Saket?’

I said out loud to myself.

‘It’s okay. You have less money, but you’re free.’

Yes, I’m finally free. To do stand-up comedy, to walk away from a bad marriage—free to do whatever I wanted to.

All my life, I’ve done what people expected me to do. Parents, relatives (maasis and buas and chachis who have an opinion on everything), friends and neighbours. I’ve wanted their approval all my life.

You’re smart? Try for IIT.

You’re in IIT? Go to Silicon Valley.

You’re in Silicon Valley? Open a start-up. Or get a job in a prestigious tech company.

Get married.

I did all these things.

Tick marks—that’s what we need from people. We live our lives collecting all these damn tick marks.

College, tick.

Job, tick.

Money, tick.

American dream, tick.

Marriage, tick.

Yet, life fucked me over. And my wife fucked somebody else.

Maybe that’s the expected outcome when you live your life trying to please others and conform to social norms.

Raashi seemed sweet when I had first met her.

I had even found her stubborn nature cute.

But I suppose that’s what happens when you take a female-deprived guy from an Indian engineering college and put him out in the world—the first girl he meets becomes a living goddess.

In retrospect, I deserved my fate.

Raashi had red flags that I never even spotted.

She never opened up to me emotionally.

She never laughed at my jokes.

She liked spending money, particularly on designer handbags, watches, clothes and shoes.

It was the only time I would see her smile.

She was on her phone all the time. She never initiated physical intimacy. Damn, Raashi had more red flags than a Chinese Communist Party parade. I should note that down. Decent joke for a show.

I discovered comedy during my marital crisis.

Comedy club bars became my escape in San Francisco.

They give you alcohol and make you laugh.

What better way to run away from your problems, even if for a few hours?

Right around the same time, Mudit quit the traditional corporate path in Mumbai to make a career in live events, eventually specializing in comedy.

We connected while I was still in San Francisco.

He saw my interest in comedy and told me to give it a shot someday.

I tried a few jokes at some NRI parties, one of the most boring gatherings of human beings on earth.

Each NRI party, no matter where in the world it takes place, follows a predictable pattern.

First, the men and the women segregate.

Then the men discuss cricket, the stock market and whisky.

If it’s Silicon Valley, they also discuss who sold their start-up and got rich.

The women, meanwhile, discuss part-time-helper woes and where to get cheap waxing done and source the best idli batter from.

Finally, I unplugged the computer of my US life.

I did a full shutdown to end it all—my job, my marriage, my life in San Francisco, everything.

Now, here I am, drinking bad instant black coffee and staring out of my window at one in the morning.

Alone, broken, jobless and directionless, but free.

I got up from the window ledge and walked to my bedroom.

I turned off the lights and lay down on the bed.

But the coffee and all the memories of San Francisco made it difficult to sleep.

The problem with the brain is that it stores the past in its entirety, especially the painful bits.

No, you’ve got to move past this.

San Francisco is history.

You are here now.

Think about what you’re going to do tomorrow.

Think about the big show next weekend.

I checked my phone. I had a message from Mudit: ‘Up?’

‘Sort of,’

I replied.

Mudit immediately gave me a call.

‘Bro, it’s one-thirty in the morning. I’m trying to sleep,’ I said.

‘But you replied. What’s up?’

‘Nothing. Just spent five hundred dollars on a video call.’

‘Wow, some sex show that must’ve been. Which porn site?’

‘Not a porn site, you ass. Zoom call with my lawyer. Paid him only to find out that I need to pay my ex-wife even more money.’

‘That crap isn’t settled yet?’

‘Almost. Anyway, why did you call?’

‘I’m nervous about the show next weekend.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s our biggest show, man. Two star comics are coming. And there are five more acts, including yours.’

‘You’re making me more nervous now.’

‘No, no. Don’t worry. You’ll be great.’

‘I hope so.’

‘But Saket, the media is coming. We need to have a full house, okay? Like packed. Barely any standing room only. People-sitting-on-the-floor types.’

‘Yeah. How can I help?’

‘Can you send a broadcast invite to your entire contact list? Like everyone you know.’

‘Okay, I will.’

‘Please. Right now.’

‘Now? Dude, it’s pretty late.’

‘Doesn’t matter. They’ll see it in the morning. Every person who’s given you their contact or their business card, invite them, please. We have to crack this.’

‘We will, Mudit, relax.’

‘Anyway, I need to work on a new poster. See you soon. Good night,’

Mudit said and ended the call.

I opened the comedy broadcast group on my WhatsApp. It had over one hundred members. I quickly composed a message.

‘Hi guys, Saket Khurana here. I want to invite you to Crayon Comedy Club’s biggest night ever. Seven comics, including yours truly, and two all-star acts. This Saturday. Click on the link for tickets. Drinks and food included in the ticket price.’

I pressed send, kept the phone on my bedside table and lay down again.

A second later, my phone pinged. I picked it up.

‘You need me for the Jain jokes again?’

Payal Jain had messaged.

I had, needless to say, added her number to the broadcast list.

‘Hey,’

I replied.

‘Thanks for the invite.’

‘You’ll come?’

‘I’ll try my best to be there. I do need a break.’

‘That’s great. Up so late?’

I responded.

‘Yeah, still in office. Can you believe it?’

‘Now?’

‘Working on an investment memo. You’re lucky. You quit the rat race.’

‘Quitting has its own challenges though.’

‘Like what?’

‘Big event this Saturday. With star comics. I’m nervous.’

‘But good nervous, right?’

‘Good nervous?’

‘Many things can make us nervous. But some are “good nervous”. The good problems to have in life.’

‘As in?’

‘As in, you’re doing comedy. Think about it. This was your dream, and now you get to live it. That too, a show with other big names.’

‘Are you always this upbeat and supportive?’

‘Ha ha. For others, yes. Not for myself.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I’m hard on myself.’

‘Explain?’

‘Umm … like I feel I’m wasting my time chatting with you. I should get back to my proposal.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, please do get back to work.’

‘Don’t be. It’s fine.’

‘Anyway, I’ll hopefully see you on Saturday. Good night.’

I kept my phone aside and closed my eyes. Thoughts of Payal floated around in my head. Did I have a chance with her? I continued to wonder as I drifted off to sleep.

‘Speak louder, Mummy,’

I said.

‘I’m on a train.’

I struggled to stand in the crowded compartment of the local train, using one hand to hold on to the handrail above me and the other to press the phone against my ear.

‘Train? Where are you going?’

‘Local train. It’s how people travel here. And I’m going to the comedy club in Parel. Ouch,’

I said as the man in front elbowed me.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, Mummy. Can we speak later? It’s hard to balance in a moving train with the phone in one hand.’

‘Can’t you take a taxi to Parel?’

‘I have a train pass. Why waste so much money?’

‘You gave Raashi a palace in America. And now you have to take the local train?’

‘I can take a taxi, Mummy. But trains are faster. Besides, I want to live like a struggler. Which I am, in comedy.’

‘I can’t bear this. Come home, Saket. If you want to live in India, that’s okay. But come here. Do this comedy-vomedy here. All your uncles are here. They’re all so funny.’

‘There is no comedy scene in Chandigarh.’

‘At least move closer to us. Delhi?’

‘No. Mumbai is where the comedy action is. Mudit is also here; he’s a huge support.’

‘What comedy-comedy you keep doing? We never had all this in our time. We had Johnny Walker, Keshto Mukherjee, Mehmood—’

I cut her off mid-sentence.

‘They were all comedians in movies. I’m a stand-up comic.’

‘You can get a good job in India also.’

‘I’m fine, Mummy,’

I said. I gasped as a man stamped on my foot while getting off at the Mahim station.

‘Raashi signed the papers?’

‘Not yet. She’ll do it soon.’

‘See, she still wants to save her marriage. No woman wants to break her house, beta. You should reconsider. I’ve always thought of her like a daughter.’

‘Mummy!’

I shouted.

‘Stop it. Do you even know what’s going on?’

‘What?’

‘She’s not signing the papers because she wants more money.’

‘How much?’

‘Eighty per cent of everything.’

‘Eighty per cent? Has she gone mad? I knew she’s a complete evil witch. Chudail.’

‘I have to go. My station is coming up.’

‘I feel really bad, beta. I pushed you to agree to this match. I thought they were simple people. They live in the next sector …’

‘It’s okay. I agreed to the wedding. It’s my fault. I messed up. I’m paying for it now.’

The train entered the Lower Parel station.

‘At least don’t be angry, beta.’

‘I’m not angry, Mummy. Did I say anything to you?’

‘Do you need anything? Money?’

‘No, I’m fine. Have to go, Mummy. Bye.’

The train screeched to its fifteen-second halt at Lower Parel. A sea of humanity rushed out of the train doors like toothpaste extruding out of a tube, extracting me along with it.

When I entered the Crayon Club, it was mostly empty. Only Mudit was there, giving instructions to some workers placing plastic seats behind the last row.

Mudit high-fived me when I walked up to him.

‘We’re sold out,’

he said.

‘Oversold, rather. It’s not allowed, but I’m adding a temporary row at the back and mattresses on the floor in front of the first row.’

‘Amazing,’ I said.

‘All set for your act?’

Mudit said.

‘Freaking out on the inside. There are big, established comedy stars performing today. And I’m in the same show.’

‘Exactly. My brother is getting into the big league,’

Mudit said, slapping my back.

‘Wow, those are some serious back muscles, dude. That gym membership is paying off, huh?’

‘Trying my best,’ I said.

‘Do the same here,’

Mudit said, fist-bumping me.

‘Stay calm, okay? And kill it.’

‘Anyone married here?’

I said, scanning the crowd.

Around half of the hundred-and-twenty-plus audience in the packed auditorium raised their hands.

‘Damn, no wonder all of you are here to cure your depression,’ I said.

Titters ran through the crowd.

‘Who got married the north Indian way?’ I said.

Some twenty people raised their hands.

‘And who had a south Indian wedding? Also known as the six-in-the-morning, no-fun torture wedding?’

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Five people raised their hands.

‘Okay, I had a north Indian wedding. And now I’m going through a north Indian divorce too, but that’s a different story.’

The audience laughed heartily.

‘No, seriously, north Indian divorces have their own drama, just like north Indian weddings do. I don’t know about other moms, but Punjabi moms have their own unique style when it comes to dealing with their sons’

divorces. Today, my mother actually apologized to me for finding my wife for me.’

A few in the audience went ‘aww’.

‘Then she said, “I thought they were simple people.” What’s this Indian obsession with simple people, really? Who exactly

are these “simple people”? More importantly, who are the “complex people”?’

Laughter in the audience. I kept going with the improvised set.

‘Punjabi moms are also great at switching their affection. At the start of the same call, when my mother still had hopes that my marriage could survive, she said my wife was “just like her daughter”. Then, when I told her that her supposed daughter wants a huge settlement, my mom said, “I knew she was an evil witch. Chudail.” Punjabi moms can go from “like my daughter” to “chudail” in a few seconds, I tell you.’

A loud burst of laughter.

In the far-left corner of the club, I saw a door open and a girl enter. It was Payal. She sat on one of the plastic chairs in the last row.

‘Anyway, I’m getting screwed in my divorce settlement. I had to get screwed. You see, I’m an extra-trusting sort of a guy. Like I even believe all the ads on TV. You guys have heard of Axe deodorants?’

Many in the audience nodded and said yes.

‘Yeah, well, I’m so trusting that when I first saw the ad—the one that showed girls running after you if you sprayed the deodorant on yourself because it made you irresistible—I actually believed it.’

Giggles from the crowd.

‘No, really. I sprayed like half a can on myself, and then went out to the shopping mall. I went inside some women’s clothing stores. But nobody moved even an inch closer to me. I sprayed the whole damn can all over myself. Even then, nothing.’

The laughs I got felt like a rain shower.

‘That’s when I figured that they were lying. If their deo spray actually made women go that crazy and made them run after you, imagine what the situation would be like in the Axe factory? Things would be out of control, with mobs of women at the gates every morning.’

Loud chuckles.

‘All that aside, while testing the deodorant, I even ended up in a lingerie store. No Axe effect there either. But I learnt that there’s something called the push-up bra,’ I said.

Many women in the audience nodded.

‘Now, some names just don’t translate well from English to Hindi. Take the push-up bra, for example. What would you call a push-up bra in Hindi? Dhakka-maar bra?’

Giggles ran through the crowd.

‘Anyway, let’s leave the push-up bras aside, which, some may argue, are a form of deceptive advertising.’

A few scattered laughs. I saw Payal smile but shake her head in disagreement.

‘Moving on, any food lovers out here?’ I said.

Up went some hands.

‘They say food can also become an addiction. You heard that?’

The audience nodded.

‘I sort of get what they’re trying to say, but addiction is a strong term, don’t you think? Because it isn’t like a drug addiction or even an alcohol addiction. Drug addicts and alcohol addicts have been known to shoot and stab people to get money for their fix. Food addicts don’t do that. Like have you ever heard of someone holding a person at gunpoint for some jalebis? Or that a Punjabi mom stabbed someone over a plate of gulab jamuns? Though that may have actually happened somewhere. Probably in Chandigarh, Sector 17. “Give me that gulab jamun, you chudail,”’

I said, stabbing at the air.

Loud laughter in the entire auditorium this time. Payal laughed as well, this time hysterically.

I cracked a few more jokes before ending my act. Mudit, the emcee for the night, came on stage.

‘That was Crayon Club’s homegrown rising star, Saket Khurana, everyone. Let’s hear it for my childhood chaddi buddy.’

The gracious crowd sent me off with a huge round of applause. As I exited the stage, a man came up to me.

‘Do you do corporate shows as well?’ he said.

‘Huh … Yes, I guess. Why not?’ I said.

We exchanged numbers. I looked up to the heavens above. Thank you, God, for looking out for me, I said, and mumbled a silent prayer.

‘I hope you haven’t paid for that drink yet,’

I said, walking up to Payal.

She sat on one of the high stools at the club bar, a glass of white wine in one hand and her phone in the other.

‘Oh hi,’

she said, her eyes shining as she turned around.

‘Good show.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes. You’re getting better. The jokes, the delivery, your gestures and voice modulation.’

‘In other words, last time I sucked,’

I said, laughing.

‘I did not say that,’

Payal said.

‘Anyway, can I get you a drink?’

‘No, I’ll get one myself. You’re my guest after all.’

I took out some staff vouchers from my pocket and gave one to the bartender.

‘Gin and tonic, please,’

I said. A minute later, the bartender passed me my drink.

‘Cheers,’

Payal and I said in unison as we clinked our glasses.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I said.

‘I had fun.’

‘You came alone?’

‘I wasn’t supposed to. My best friend, Akanksha, was going to come along. But she bailed on me at the last minute.’

‘But you came anyway …’ I said.

‘Well, you’d personally invited me. And I’d accepted as well, remember?’ she said.

Our eyes met.

‘Wow, thank you.’ I smiled.

‘You don’t have to keep me company. You just wrapped up a show—go move around. Meet whoever you have to,’

Payal said.

‘I don’t need to be anywhere,’ I said.

‘You sure?’

she asked.

‘Mudit doesn’t want you out there, mingling with the guests?’

‘No. It’s fine. Another drink?’

I said, noticing her empty glass.

‘Okay, but just one more,’

she said.

‘I’m going to my parents’

place today.’

I gave two more vouchers to the bartender and asked him to repeat our respective drinks.

‘They don’t even know that I drink. I’ll need a lot of mints before I get there.’

I looked at her, surprised.

‘They’re somewhat conservative,’ she said.

‘And you?’

Payal looked at me incredulously.

‘I’m not. I drink. I love comedy. I do a few other rebellious things as well. However, I still try to do what they expect me to do.’

‘And what do they expect you to do?’

‘Work hard. Be a good Jain. Listen to them. Not have a boyfriend.’

‘And you do all that?’

‘I try to.’

Okay, so she probably didn’t have a boyfriend. That was the good news. But she wasn’t allowed to have one either. And that was the bad news.

‘So, you’re a good Jain,’ I said.

‘Except for the wine.’

‘We’ve already established that wine is Jain-friendly.’

‘It’s still alcohol though. My parents don’t drink. Like, at all.’

‘Who else is there at home?’

‘I have an elder brother. He works in the family business, supposedly. Dad still does most of the work.’

‘What business?’

‘We manufacture electrical cables. There’s a factory we have in Thane. Basically, boring stuff. Nothing like the exciting work you do.’

‘Bet cables make a lot more money than comedy does.’

‘Bet comedy is a lot more fun than making cables though.’

Both of us smiled.

‘Money can be fun too,’

I said.

‘For now, though, I have these staff vouchers for fun. More drinks? Or I could get us some food.’

‘No more drinks. But, yes, I’m starving,’

Payal said.

‘Jain-friendly food, right? Will nachos and French fries do?’

Payal told me that French fries could be considered non-Jain if one applied the more orthodox Jain rules, which meant no root vegetables. However, she and her family ate potatoes, so I could order the French fries and the nachos, without onion and garlic, of course.

When the food arrived, I took a single French fry and nibbled on it.

‘You don’t eat French fries?’

Payal said.

‘I do,’

I said.

‘But I’m on this high-protein diet right now. Boring bodybuilder gym stuff.’

‘Bodybuilding is your religion then? I don’t eat some things because I’m Jain. You don’t eat some things because you’re a bodybuilder.’

‘Sort of. There’s a lot of meat in my diet though. Jains go to heaven. Bodybuilders probably won’t.’

‘But like you said, all the fun people will be in hell. Who wants to hang out in heaven all day with Mother Teresa and Anna Hazare?’

‘Oh, you remember,’

I said. Both of us laughed.

Just then, she received a notification on her phone.

‘Sorry, I need to reply to this. It’s a work thing,’ she said.

‘Sure, go ahead,’ I said.

She furiously typed an email on her phone, silently mouthing the words as she hit the keys, unaware of the tenderness welling up inside me. How were her fingers so delicate? With nails of pale rose. Her floral-print yellow chiffon top billowed like cotton candy. Gold dolphins danced down her ears. Her hair, tied in a long ponytail, made her look younger than her age.

She looked up at me and softly mouthed ‘sorry’

for taking too much time. I smiled and gestured that it was okay.

Should I ask her out? But then what about my no-more-women-in-my-life rule? And what about her no-boyfriends-allowed rule? And what about the age-difference rule, if there was indeed such a rule?

The problem is that when you actually like someone, all the rules go for a toss.

‘Sorry, I had to respond to this,’

Payal said, finishing her email.

‘They obviously don’t care that it’s a Saturday night.’

She kept her phone aside.

‘How is work anyway?’ I said.

‘Busy. I’m stuck on this one particular problem while valuing a company. But I’m afraid that if I ask my seniors, they’ll think I’m a total idiot, which I am.’

‘No, you are not. What are you stuck on?’ I asked.

‘This company that I’m valuing has issued a lot of stock options to its employees. ESOPs, you know?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

She shook her head; the ponytail swayed in tandem.

‘There are multiple layers and tranches of ESOPs, all of which we need to account for.’

‘Yes. If the company has issued too many stock options, you’ll have massive dilution,’ I said.

‘Exactly. However, these particular ESOPs are complicated. It involves valuing complex options.’

‘Beyond the Black–Scholes formula?’

She nodded.

‘I can help,’

I said after a pause.

‘What?’

‘I’ve valued complex stock options during my Yellowstone years. We can discuss the ESOPs you’re dealing with. Just don’t give me any names or other confidential details about the company.’

‘Yeah? We can do that?’

‘Why not? You have the ESOP details? I can look at it now.’

‘Not today. It’s your big night.’

‘When do you want to do it then?’

‘I can do it tomorrow. I’m going to my parents’

place in Ghatkopar tonight. But I’ll return to my own place in Parel tomorrow. I can stop in Bandra on the way back,’

she said.

‘Will that be convenient for you?’

‘Extremely. I live in Bandra. Okay, let’s meet at Bombay Salad Co. tomorrow? That’s where I go for lunch on Sundays anyway.’

‘Sounds too healthy,’

she said doubtfully.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘No.’

She laughed.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘One Ironman chicken salad. Also, one Feel Good salad with tofu, Jain, no onion or garlic, not even in the dressing,’

I said to the server at Bombay Salad Co.

‘No tofu either, please. I hate it,’ she said.

Payal wore a dark-blue salwar kameez with tiny golden polka dots all over it. A matching bindi adorned her forehead. She had removed the dupatta she was wearing and had placed it next to her large Gucci tote bag. She had worn jhumkas as well—long silver ones with peacock feathers that matched the colour of her clothes dangling from the ends.

‘Are those real peacock feathers?’

I said, pointing at her earrings.

‘Yes. But they’re Jain-friendly. No peacocks were harmed in making these.’

‘How do you know that?’ I smiled.

‘Peacocks shed feathers naturally, that’s how. Anyway, I know I’m overdressed. Totally out of place amongst these Lululemon ladies of Bandra in the restaurant here.’

Almost every other table around us had people in athleisure attire.

‘I look like someone who’s come to eat a Gujarati thali before garba night,’ she said.

I laughed.

‘It’s my mother. She buys all this for me and then forces me to wear them every time I visit them.’

The waiter arrived with our food just then.

‘Everyone is so fit in this restaurant. Including you,’ she said.

‘Thank you. Ever since I stopped working fourteen hours a day in office, I’ve had plenty of time to work out.’

‘I wish I had your life,’

she said, sighing.

‘You can. Just quit your job, give up on this mega-paying career and do something impractical and pointless, like stand-up comedy.’

‘Comedy isn’t pointless. It makes people laugh. It makes them happy. And that’s the entire point of life, isn’t it? To be happy?’

Payal said.

‘Wow. Never saw it that way,’

I said, taking a bite of my salad.

‘I invest rich people’s money to make them even richer. That, one can argue, is pointless,’ she said.

‘Thanks. I don’t feel so bad anymore. You’re quite the capitalist philosopher, aren’t you? Evolved thoughts for such a young age.’

‘Well, I’ve been told that I’m quite mature for my age.’

‘By whom?’

‘Akanksha, my best friend.’

‘Ah yes, the one who ditched you at the last minute yesterday.’

‘Oh, someone listens.’

‘I try,’

I said, smiling.

We ate in silence for the next couple of minutes.

‘Speaking of making rich people richer, you want to discuss the ESOPs?’

I said, pushing my plate aside.

‘Yes, I do,’

Payal said. She pulled out her laptop from the tote bag. Then she took out a notebook, a set of printouts and two pens. How can girls store so much in their handbags?

She opened a spreadsheet on her laptop and turned it around so the screen was visible to both of us.

‘I hid the company details, but here is the ESOP structure. These printouts have more information,’

she said, sliding the documents towards me.

‘Okay, let’s see,’

I said as I scanned the spreadsheet.

I spent the next hour working with her. In between, we ordered two rounds of black coffee. I modified the spreadsheet, adding a few new rows and formulae.

‘And that’s it,’

I said.

‘This is the value of the ESOPs.’

I turned the laptop screen towards her.

‘This makes sense,’

she said a minute later, going through the spreadsheet.

‘And the ESOPs are worth almost twenty-five per cent of the total shares in the company.’

‘Yes, a quarter of the company.’

She looked up.

‘Thank you, Saket. This is incredibly helpful. I almost feel like calling you Saket sir.’

‘Please don’t. I don’t need any more reminders about my age. Even this morning, some college kid at the gym said, “Uncle, are you done with the cable machine?”’

‘That’s all right,’

Payal said, unable to suppress her laughter.

‘The dude was twenty years old. And a giant. Bodybuilder type.’

‘I’m also twenty-one. Maybe I should also—’

she said, but I interrupted her mid-sentence.

‘No, please, no. Not “sir”. And definitely not “uncle”. Saket is okay.’

‘Okay … Saket,’

she said, grinning.

‘Wish me luck. I have to present this next Thursday.’

She shut her laptop and put everything back inside her tote bag.

‘You’ll rock it,’

I said. I knew she would.

We finished our coffees and came out of the restaurant. She called her driver, who arrived in a BMW.

‘It’s my dad’s, in case you’re composing,’ she said.

‘Composing what?’

‘More papa-ki-pari jokes?’

I laughed. She was funny. Also smart, thoughtful and beautiful. How and who was I to resist this?

Before leaving, Payal gave me a quick side-hug. Girls have different categories of hugs. If they don’t know you, there are no goodbye hugs at all. If they somewhat know you, you get a side hug. If they know you well, you get a proper full-frontal-embrace hug.

Okay, so I was now in the somewhat-know-you category.

‘Aarrghhh!’

I screamed, doing a bicep curl with twenty-kilo dumbbells while on a call with Kushal. I had him on my AirPods.

‘Are you okay, Saket? I thought I gave you good news,’

Kushal said.

‘Yeah, sorry. In the gym.’

I kept the dumbbells back in the rack and sat down on a bench.

‘I can call later. Just wanted to give you the good news.’

‘Eighty per cent of my savings are gone. Still, it’s good news. Fine.’

‘She didn’t budge. But at least she signed the papers. It didn’t go to trial. You’re a free man.’

‘I’m officially divorced now?’

‘Yes. The judge will sign the order later this week.’

‘Fine.’

‘And also …’

Kushal paused.

‘What?’

‘Our pending legal fees,’

he said in a sheepish voice.

‘Sure. Take whatever you want. The remaining twenty per cent?’

‘No, Saket, only what is due. I’ll send you an invoice. Take care.’

I ended the call. Then I walked back to the rack and picked up two thirty-kilo dumbbells.

‘Too much,’

one of the trainers at the gym said when he saw me struggling to do bicep curls with the massive weight.

‘What?’

I said, keeping the dumbbells down and turning to him.

‘That’s too much weight. You can get hurt.’

But what if I’m already hurt?

‘Free?’

The one-word message from Payal popped up as a notification on my phone. I stopped writing and pushed my laptop aside.

‘Yes, wasup?’

I replied.

‘Finishing up the investment memo. How are you?’

‘Good. Preparing for a corporate-show audition.’

‘Oh, that’s great.’

‘Yeah, let’s see how it actually goes. How is the IM looking?’

‘Good. I need your help. Again.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ve finished the section on the ESOPs, with explanations. Can you take a quick look and see if it all makes sense?’

‘Yes, sure. Email it to me.’

I shared my email address with her.

In a few seconds, her email arrived in my inbox. I opened the attached file and spent fifteen minutes going through it before giving her a call.

‘Hey,’

she said, picking up.

‘Is it terrible?’

‘No. It’s absolutely fine. Why were you even doubtful?’

‘Sorry, I’m just nervous.’