Misadventure @ 30

Every Ending Is A New Beginning

It was Anika’s 30th birthday. The big 30!!! That had her
going a little crazy since morning. Taken a break from
work in the middle of the week, she had been reminiscing
since the night before about life – her past and her future.
What had she accomplished in 30 years of her life? Agreed
she had a wonderful job, but that was it. She had nothing
to show for her personal life. She lived with her ageing
mother and took care of her. It was ironical because when
Anika’s mother, Shyama, was pregnant with her, she
never wanted this child. This was the irony of her life – the
same child was looking after her since the last 12 years;
ever since her parents parted ways.
Anika parked aside those thoughts and decided to
forego everything else as well. Tonight was her night and
she was going to do whatever she liked. Her friends tried
making plans for her. They suggested a film or venture
out to a club. It would be the same each time, Anika
thought. She would see someone cute at the club, hit on
him, exchange numbers, hang out for a couple of dates and
then things wouldn’t work out.
Her best friend, Vanessa, insisted that they do
something together on her birthday and kept calling her
through the day. For the better part of the day, Anika had
avoided her calls knowing very well what the conversation
was going to be. Anika had a problem saying no and the
better option for her was not to answer the phone. This way
she meant no but did not really have to say the words.
In the evening, Anika did send Vanessa a text message
apologising and promising her that they would surely hook
up tomorrow.
Anika blamed herself for all her failed relationships
and all attempts at relationships. She first fell in love when
she was barely 12 years old. Infatuation, you may call it.
Having grown up on a staple diet of films and her sister’s
MnB, Anika thought the world of her teenage romance.
When that didn’t work out after 7 years of struggling with
it, she fell in love again. This one was surely for keeps. He
was straight out of a film. Hell, he was a movie star in the
making at that too. But as fate would have it – neither did
he make it through Anika’s life nor did his debut film ever
hit the silver screen!
Anika since hadn’t cared much about who came and
who exited from her life. She was content. Or so she led
herself to believe. But today was different. Today she
could feel all the things she had missed in life. Things that
normal people care about or have accomplished by the time
they are 30. She had a right to be normal, to be happy.
She was loving, caring and nurturing and it was
unfair that she didn’t have a family of her own. Kids that
would cling to her for their every little need or a husband
who would dote on her more than anyone else in the world.
The picture perfect family – as soon as she pictured – she
thought she was better off being single.
She had no man and no worries!!
Still there was something incomplete about her
existence that was bothering Anika. Maybe it was just the
panic of turning another year older.
She decided to put her woes in a can and forget about
them till tomorrow. Tonight she was going to party like
she had never partied before.
She had the house to herself that night since her
mother was visiting her sister. She could call friends or
a special friend over, but she decided against it. Tonight
needed to be something that she had never experienced
before.
Day turned into evening and evening slowly crawled
into night, by which time Anika had cracked open a bottle
of wine and was half way through the bottle before she
realised her promise to herself only earlier today.
Getting wasted alone at home wasn’t the best way to
celebrate one’s birthday. She stood up, a little unsteady,
and took charge of the situation. She then put on a pair of
pajamas, packed another one in her bag, grabbed her car
keys and her wallet and was out of the door. Just before
she could grab the half drunk bottle of wine as well.
Anika always loved driving in the night. Who wouldn’t
if you stayed in a metro city like Mumbai where day driving
meant only traffic jams and nasty public vehicle drivers.
Subconsciously she headed to her favourite place – the
beach side. Which too she loved only in the night. In the
day there were way too many hawkers and way too many
people. Anika always wondered how she had survived her
entire life in Mumbai when she felt claustrophobic in a
crowd of people.
Not just people in crowded buses or trains, Anika
didn’t like crowded parties and pubs either. She was
always the last one to enter the theatre when a film had
already started and also the last one to leave a theatre
when the film was over. She couldn’t bear the thought of
sharing an elevator full of people discussing and giving
their own take on the film they had just seen.
Still one could say that Anika was a people’s person
– people who knew her and people she liked. Otherwise,
Anika came across as a snob. Even to most of her friends
before they knew her had the same opinion of Anika.
The calm of the night and the sound of the waves
always put her to ease. She was always a ‘sea’ person
and never really liked the mountains. One of the perks of
having grown up and living in Mumbai was of course the
‘sea’ and the fact that one could be a single girl and driving
her own car – go to the beach at any hour of the night
without thinking twice of something happening.
After finishing the remainder of the wine bottle, Anika
started the car again. This time she wasn’t sure where
she was heading. She could’ve gone home given the fact
that she had drunk an entire bottle of wine. It just wasn’t
time yet. Anika kept going in circles not sure of what she
wanted to do or where she wanted to really be at this point
in time.
The thoughts of her mother, her earlier boyfriends,
her last fling, all kept coming back to her mind making
her realise that she had been a failure in personal life.
She desperately wanted to hit the ‘undo’ button a several
times over.
Alcohol does that to you sometimes. Either you sulk or
you emerge in a happy bunny mood. Anika too always had
either of the extreme reactions to spirit. Tonight, however,
it was the sulky, gloomy reaction.
Lost in her thoughts, Anika had almost reached home
but seeing a cop van surveying the area, she went around
the same block three times before realising that someone
had his arm and finger stretched and had been signalling
for a lift to her.
The fact that she had gone around him three times
already made him think that this was his lucky night.
Anika without thinking stopped her car and rolled
the window just a tad bit so as to be able to hear the guy.
“Hi, do you really think I’m going to give you a lift?” she
questioned the stranger. “Well, you did go around and come
back, so I thought you took pity on me,” he replied. “Don’t
you have any money?’’ she enquired. “Of course I do, but
there is no public transport around as you can see.”
Two minutes into the conversation and Anika’s flurry
state was enough for her to open the car door to let the
stranger in. He didn’t look indecent or uneducated or a
loafer.
Anika could just imagine her mother yelling
uncontrollably had she known what Anika had just done.
‘Giving a lift to a stranger, a boy in the middle of the night,
are you crazy?’ Blah blah blah . . . she would go on and on
and would not stop.
Anika liked irritating her mother by being rebellious.
Sometimes giving her grief made Anika happy. She shared
a love-hate relationship with her mother and made no
bones about it. Honesty in a relationship and about the
relationship made life simpler to live.
What she had just done would have her friends,
especially Vanessa, throw up on her as well. Or just anyone
who cared about Anika would have the same reaction.
It was not even alright to give a lift to someone in the
daytime, let alone in the dead of the night.
Anika was willing to take the chance. ‘What is the
worse that could happen?’ she thought. Actually, she
didn’t. Or she would have thought of doing otherwise.

Look Before You Leap

Anika was in her car with a stranger besides her.
“Are you going to drive?” he asked.
“I will if you tell me your name and where are we
going?”
“Hi, I’m Vaz and we are going home. At least I am,”
he answered.
“Well Vaz, I would love to take you home,” she chuckled,
‘‘or rather lets just drop you home,” Anika responded and
off she drove.
“Are you sure you want to come all the way to New
Mumbai to drop me?” So Vaz stayed at New Mumbai.
That would have sounded like a long distance if you had
to cover in the day but at this hour it was a piece of cake.
Empty roads, not much traffic, no blaring horns – it was
an absolute pleasure driving.
“Yes, I will,” Anika told him, “so, do you do this
often?”
“You mean going home?” Vaz asked puppy eyed.
“You know what I mean. Do you often depend on lifts
to travel back home?”
“Usually my friends do the noble deed. Tonight,
however, they all had a bit too much to drink and I had to
resort to you for help.”
“So if you stay at New Mumbai, why are you partying
all the way here?” Anika’s inquisitive self was getting the
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better of her knowing too well that the next morning she
wasn’t going to remember any of this conversation. She
wasn’t really interested in gathering information about
Vaz as much as she was in keeping herself awake.
“Do you always ask so many questions?” Vaz asked
almost reading her thoughts.
“Not always. Only when I want to make senseless
conversation that I am not interested in,” Anika laughed
not sure whether she was being funny or was making the
stranger now sitting in her car feel uncomfortable.
Silence filled the car for a while and neither of them
knew how to break the ice.
Anika was always good at such things. She said, “You
will have to give me directions. I don’t always run my cab
service to New Mumbai, you see.”
Anika had a cheeky sense of humour. Sometimes it
worked and sometimes it pissed people off completely. She
was well aware of the fact that she was abrasive but did
she really want to change herself to suit others. She wasn’t
the sort. It didn’t matter to her if she had fewer friends or
didn’t have a man in her life. It was better to have people
who love you for what you are rather than being plastic
and having hoards of people who wouldn’t stand by you in
difficult times.
“If we had cabbies as pretty as you in New Mumbai,
people would never reach their destination,” Vaz
retorted.
“What do you mean?” Anika asked.
“People would never want to get off your cab!” Vaz
smiled.
Anika was impressed. Vaz was smooth and his
comebacks were only getting better. She could see that this
12
drive was going to be enjoyable and hopefully, memorable
for the both of them.
In less than half an hour, Anika had already crossed
the flyover and was about to take a left turn to reach
New Mumbai when Vaz offered if she would like to have
coffee.
“Coffee? At this hour? Where do you think we will get
coffee?”
“Well, not here, for sure.” Vaz said hesitantly. “We
can go to Fariyas and have a cup, if you would like.”
“Fariyas is in Lonavala!” she jumped in her own car
seat. “Yes, but that’s another half an hour from where we
are.” Vaz was being sweet or corny she couldn’t decide.
So here was this guy who she had barely met half an
hour back and instead of going home and tucking himself
in bed, he wanted to take her out for coffee. Anika wanted
an adventure for the night and this seemed to be turning
out into one for sure.
“Do you have money to treat me?” she surprised Vaz
with that question.
“That’s rude. Yes, I do.” Vaz smiled at her.
“Since I am spending all the petrol money, least you
can do is pay for coffee.” Anika smirked.
So off they were to destination Lonavala.
If driving on the streets of Mumbai was fun, the
expressway was unbelievable.
Anika had actually considered being a cab driver who
would run the course of expressway when she first started
driving only three years back. Smooth roads, six lanes, one
13
could race up to 160 kms without blinking an eyelid; it was
how and where cars were meant to be driven.
Enjoying the pleasure of driving and crooning along
with Enrique Iglesias’s love songs, Anika almost had
forgotten that she had company in the car.
“You really don’t have a singing voice,” she heard Vaz
scream.
“You don’t say!” Anika laughed. “I know. I usually
don’t sing but this one is just for you,” she started crooning
along with Enrique again. She could see Vaz almost
regretting asking her for coffee is when she decided to stop
and flashed him her cute little smile. Vaz smiled back at
her too.
They spoke about the kind of music Vaz liked and what
his hobbies were and what school he had gone to. She felt
like she had known Vaz all along. The only problem with
this friendship was that he didn’t know anything about
her. He didn’t even know her name. He had asked her
twice and she had refused to tell him. After that neither
had he attempted nor had she offered to tell him.
She thought she might just tell him. What’s in a name
– the great Shakespeare had said. Before she could, she
was turning left to the hotel gate at Fariyas.
It was her favourite hotel in Lonavala and she
was surprised that Vaz had suggested it. It was just a
coincidence. A lot of people came to Lonavala and Fariyas
was the busiest hotels all year round.
And of course the best thing about the hotel was their
24-hour coffee shop.

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