"Where the hell is the party boy?" Suri asked, already in stratosphere and still swigging away the whisky.
I smiled at him. "Dilip's gone to fetch Ron."
"Well, that's cute. Why couldn't Ron make it on his own? He gotta problem with the place or what?"
"Well, Suri, Ron's one of Dilip's best pals and he don't know the city that well. He just flew in today."
I excused myself and walked quickly to the wet bar.
Dilip had left barely a couple of minutes ago and already the crowd was missing him. And why not? It was, after all, his party. Today was the silver jubilee of his firm. He had begun Ess Associates exactly twenty-five years ago when he had been about 24 years old. Armed with a diploma and a couple of years of experience with a large architectural firm, he began his operations in a dinghy ten by fifteen office across a small lane that branched half a mile off the Main Street. There was a beat up old table, three chairs, a telephone and a drafting board. He shared a common bathroom with the offices on his floor.
He'd come a long way from there. He now had a swanky office with all the bells and the whistles and half a dozen staff working under him.
I grabbed a beer and plunked back against the bar, sipping the chilled liquid and surveying the crowd. I wondered for the thousandth time why architects and those connected with any form of art often sprout beards and / or act so whimsically. Dilip himself had a beard, wore trousers that seemed to be bought in a flea market and slippers that looked like he had found abandoned in some alleyway.
Most of the crowd I saw that day were similar though of course, the women had their own way of expressing their eccentricities. On women architects (and there were quite a few of them) I found a generous proportion of them with piercing. Shit! Apart from those piercing in the ears, and perhaps on the side of the nose, I abhor piercing on any other part of the body.
One lady was wearing something that looked like a cross between a bathrobe and a skirt. Another was in a wrap- around sari, while yet another wore tight pants that perhaps were made by stitching together a number of doormats.
Seated directly ahead of me in a group of about half a dozen weirdoes was Radha, and as it happened every time I looked at her, my heart skipped. (Something else skipped to, and I leave it to your imagination to know what did).
Dilip was 49 and Radha, 36. And as the years rolled on, the difference in their ages was getting (and looking) more pronounced. It was difficult to believe that Radha was a mother of a 14-year old daughter, but to look at her husband, one would think that the 14-year old kid was his granddaughter. Too often, one got the impression that Radha was his daughter, not his wife.
Tongues started wagging and he was getting used to the sniggers behind his back. This had affected him psychologically and so she had given up the contacts and taken up wearing huge, and somewhat dowdy-looking glasses and saris (whenever they went out, though today the contacts were in and the glasses were out, perhaps on Dilip's instructions, as this get together meant a lot to him and maybe he wanted her to look young just for this day, at least) – this get-up gave her a more mature look, but comments made by those within the family – gosh, you look so young - (as a compliment to her) hadn't helped repair Dilip's psyche.
It wasn't that she was petite; on the contrary, she was a big woman. At five seven, she was just about a couple of inches shorter than him and the hundred and twenty-five pounds she weighed was exquisitely proportioned, and this big-boned body of hers, supposedly draped up to look a lot older than she really was, didn't quite work, because, in contrast her face was soft with large, dark flashing eyes, well-defined lashes and eyebrows and the well maintained thick, dark, long luxurious hair falling in gentle waves to her waist. Add to that her creamy skin and her full soft mouth and you could well toss out the theory that clothes could make one look older than one really is.
She had mile-long legs and I have seen them on many occasions when she wore those gowns and robes at home. (Oftentimes, she also wore knee length skirts). In her saris, especially those that weren't meant to be draped tightly, you couldn't see those great knees and strong thighs that went up to her rounded buttocks. The sudden dip at her tiny waist (tiny by her otherwise big standards) had once made my teenaged daughter blurt out that she had a great figure.
Great, hell, her figure was every man's dream and I am human. And what really got to me were those amazing breasts that she could only hide by draping the border of her sari across them. I have seen her with that border tipping away from her shoulders. I am amazed that my heart has survived all those mild heart attacks whenever I have seen those blouse-encased breasts, straining out of the flimsy material. Even in the most orthodox-looking saris, she almost always wore low-neck blouses that revealed lots of cleavage whenever, by chance, the border of the sari fell down her shoulders. When she bent down, like to pick up something from off the floor, those huge breasts strained against her front, which made me wonder why they didn't rip off the blouse and tumble out.
She looked my way, gave me a small smile and a quick wink, rolling her eyes in mock despair and gently shrugging her shoulders, indicating the weirdoes bunched around her. I grinned back, lighting a cigarette. We were pretty close to each other and why not? Her husband was my wife's brother.
She was my sister-in-law. And though I was a year younger than her husband, I had no such psychological hang-ups like Dilip. If my petite wife, all of 45 years old looked a decade younger, I too looked like I was in my late thirties and my spirit complimented the looks.
There were a lot of times that I thought she knew I fantasized about her but we kept the charade by limiting ourselves to mild flirting, and equally flirtatious messages on the cell phones.
It was during this time that I noticed what eventually led up to our breaking the ice. She was wearing a flimsy pink sari with matching blouse. She had draped the border over one shoulder and not across her chest and even if she had, the material was flimsy enough to reveal the outlines of her lacy bra.
My eyes almost popped out when I noticed that one strap of the bra had come off and even from this distance I could notice the goof up. For a moment, I thought of walking up to the group and quietly inform Radha about the particular predicament, but hell, that would have been very embarrassing for her.
I looked back and spied upon the room at the back of the hotel that Dilip had hired for the party to store the paraphernalia required to throw such a party at this big a scale. I knew that she had the key to the room and this gave me the idea.
I whipped out my cell phone and scrolled to 'Write Messages'. I manipulated the touch buttons to write: "Emergency! Embarrassing! Don't look my way but urgent u cum to room. Ur dress is not in order. Pretend nothing wrong & xcuse urself 2 cum here. Rpt urgent"
I sent the message and watched her shuffling with her cell phone. Her eyes widened and despite my warning, she looked my way questioningly.
I pointed slowly at my left shoulder. Casually she ran a hand across her left shoulder and her eyes widened when she realized the goof up. She didn't get up immediately; I'll give that much for her, but a minute later, she excused herself and walked gracefully over to where I was standing.
"Since when?" she asked me softly, standing in front of me.
"I just noticed," I told her conversationally, aware that a few eyes maybe diverted towards us. More specifically, towards her, because she was so elegant and gave that aura of statuesque personality.
"What now?" she asked, her eyes pleading and frantic.
"Use that room. I presume you have the key. Immediate repair is called for. The party's hardly started."
She smiled gratefully and walked to the room.
I had been hardly able to keep my eyes away from her heaving chest when she had stood in front of me. The left strap of her bra had parted from the cup and the cup had slid down considerably. Through the flimsy, almost transparent blouse, I could see the top of her near naked breast.
She disappeared into the room and I could hear the bolt shooting in the dead lock. I continued to sip my drink and smoke my cigarette, aware that I had a slight bulge between my legs that made standing uncomfortable.
After perhaps five minutes and another cigarette, I heard the bolt sliding back and she whispered, "May!"
I glanced at her. She was peering through the crack of the door, the dim light behind her illuminating her thick mane of hair.
"What's it?" I whispered back.
"Need your help!"
I straightened up flicking the cigarette to the floor and stepping on the butt, casually glancing around the garden where the crowd was busy, engrossed in their gossip and drinks. I wondered why she hadn't asked me to locate her best pal, Mina, who had already arrived with her husband. Then I realized that Mina and her husband were playing the temporary hosts.
Slowly, so as not to be noticed, I slid into the stuffed room. It was full of plates, glasses, bottles, folding chairs and tables, casseroles and what have you. She had closed the large window and drawn the drapes. A naked low-wattage bulb hung in the center of the ceiling, providing very little illumination. There was also a dressing table with a narrow, but tall mirror pushed up in one corner.
"What's wrong?" I asked as she bolted the door behind her after I entered.
"The goddamned thing's snapped," she told me as I swung around to face her.
The border of the sari was off, bunched around her waist, her blouse unbuttoned and she was clutching the bra to her chest. She was wearing a tight, flimsy and lacy pink bra, perhaps to match the sari and the blouse.
"What's snapped?" I muttered, trying to look away.
"The place where the strap holds the cup," she explained, her eyes averted from mine and watching the damage instead.
I looked at it. Sure enough, the strap had sheared off the cup, which she was now holding against her breast. The strap hung loose off her shoulder.
I shuffled in place, trying to hide my bulge.
"So what do you suggest?" I asked plaintively.
"I have a safety pin, but I can't manage to pin it up with one hand." She was blushing now and I suddenly realized that her voice was no longer flirtatiously flippant as is the normal case, but had a definite edge of embarrassment in it. I also caught a hint of helpless intimacy in the voice, now that she had only me to help her out of her predicament.
"Pin what up?" I said stupidly.
"The strap to the cup. Temporary repairs. Just to see if it works." Her voice was now definitely husky and her eyes fluttered beneath her lashes as she glanced at me and then abruptly back to the bra-cup that she held over her half naked breast.
I understood her difficulty. She couldn't possibly hold both the cup and the strap together and pin them up with both her hands. The bra, as I later learned was a tight fit.
