It's been just over five years that I moved into this apartment; a new year has just begun. Although my New Year's Eve had been one of strangely deep sorrow, the first day of the new year had been a phenomenal one after Anita came and dragged me out of the house and we partied, and how, almost till the sun came up. The reason I had been down in the dumps was because Sunita had left; I got back at sundown on the 31st of December and found a scrap of paper on the table next to the entrance saying "I go. Bye Bye." Since then I have been recounting in these chapters my life, and hers the way she told it to me, since I arrived in this country.
The year is 2013. It is now late afternoon on New Year's Day and some of the euphoria of the early morning party at the dance club with Annie is now wearing off. Thoughts of Sunita are gradually creeping back into my brain. The depression that I got in to last night and which is threatening to overpower me again, when I look at it candidly and objectively, is strange. She is, was, my maid; my domestic help. Lover too I guess. General caretaker. So why am I as upset as I am? I try hard to drive these thoughts away; I think again of going out with Annie last night, I think of all the work that awaits me after the New Year holidays finish in a couple of days, I think of the business trips I need to plan for the first quarter of the year. I also think of the next couple of days parties that I now must go and attend, if only to stop me from drowning in the pool of emptiness I feel inside the apartment.
One of the parties is being thrown by our bankers tonight and I'm particularly looking forward to that; they're always immense fun. I remember around the time I moved into this flat was also the time I was promoted to head the Asia region and soon after that, I'd chosen to make New Delhi our headquarters rather than relocate to Singapore. One of the first to woo me in that position was our bankers, the global French giant BNP. They didn't really need to since they handled most of our banking needs internationally, a decision that had been taken by our Directors in Europe. And since then I'd been invited to semi-annual bashes thrown by them. They were a young dynamic group of individuals, smart investment bankers and smooth corporate relationship managers, led usually by an equally energetic executive posted in India by their Paris based headquarters. And tonight was another one of their parties.
Back in 2007 when I was first invited to their mid-year party, it was in September I recall, but the summer wasn't quite over. It was a semi-formal cocktails and dinner hosted by BNP's CEO who had flown up from Bombay along with half a dozen of his senior corporate banking staff. The bank's New Delhi team were also in attendance, as were other senior bankers from the city and a smattering of BNP's corporate client representatives. Also there was our Relationship Manager, Payal.
Payal of course had visited me at our office and I'd met her couple of times at the bank's office. She was only three inches shorter than me and in heels, almost matched my height. I'd always seen her very smartly dressed in sarees and fashionable two inch heels; blouses that always revealed just that small amount of cleavage that left you wanting more. Her breasts looked firm and fairly large; her arse and hips were also firm, no sag or jiggle when she walked in her tightly wound sari. Payal was relatively fair complexioned, not what one would call dusky; she had large eyes that were invariably highlighted with a rich lining of kohl; her lips looked soft and luscious but somehow her mouth was more often than not set quite firmly; and her hair I always thought was long but I could never be sure because she always wore it as a tightly wrapped bun at the back of her head.
That night in September 2007 I saw a totally new avatar of my bank relationship manager. The party was pretty much in full swing by the time I got there at 8:00 in the evening; there were about 70 people spread across the two suites at the Sheraton, both opening out into a large terrace garden which in turn overlooked the sprawling lawns on the property two floors down. I had a drink in my hand, talking to two French corporate lawyers who worked for BNP in Paris and were visiting for some litigation involving the India offices, standing out on the terrace facing the suites. She walked in wearing a black t-shirt that was like a second skin over her breasts and chest, falling well short of her abdomen. A pair of white jeans rode precariously low on her hips, leaving a wide expanse of skin between the top and the denims, with the dark shadows of her deep navel winking as she sauntered towards the serving bar counter.
It was impossible for me to carry on my conversation with the legal experts that I was huddled with as I stared at the apparition; her hair was indeed very long, flowing in amazing curls from the top of her head to the top of her jeans, the perfect curve of her white denim clad buttocks swelling just after that. I must have been gawking open-mouthed because the two gentlemen I was talking with simultaneously turned their heads around to see what I was so profoundly agape with. One of them turned back to me and asked if I knew that babe and I replied saying "She's my banker". They gave me funny looks and almost immediately drifted off to some other corner of the terrace I couldn't be bothered with.
I have to admit that I felt a stirring in my groin as I stared at this wonderful creature; hard as nails when she did business, alluring as the devil tonight. And if I must continue this train of honesty, I also have to admit that this wasn't the first time my groin was stirring in her presence. However, whenever I'd met Payal before in the bank or at work, of course I tried hard not to flirt with her because, first of all, I assumed she had to deal with being treated differently all day long being in the gender minority, but also because we had a work relationship and it was important that I treat her with the same respect I afforded all my co-workers. That didn't mean that I wasn't interested in the idea of messing around with her if the opportunity was to present itself. It turned out that when an opportunity did present itself, I apparently wasn't the only one feeling that way.
Standing outside on the terrace, I lost sight of Payal when a bunch of people silhouetted against the light from inside the rooms gathered in the path of my vision. I emptied the last dregs of the Jack Daniels in my glass (I remember it was JD because that's what Payal was drinking too as I discovered later) and started walking towards the bar where I hoped she would be. But she wasn't. I ordered a Jack with a fistful of ice cubes and turned around, leaning against the bar counter, staring into the cocktail crowd. Surely a black top and white jeans would be easy to spot in the subdued lighting of the suites or even the near darkness of the terrace, but I just couldn't see where she'd gone.
I picked up my glass and sauntered through the huddles of people, shaking the occasional hand and excusing myself as I drifted towards the door connecting the two suites. The first room of the neighbouring suite was a bedroom where two ladies with blue Curacao drinks were in animated conversation sitting on a couch together. I shouldered my way past another trio of gentlemen near the door leading to the living room and peered inside. There were a couple of table lamps that spread a soft glow along the walls, a glass sliding panel that led out to the terrace garden, and another door I assumed opened into the washroom. I couldn't see her here either. Where the fuck had Payal gone?
