One Indian Girl(10)

‘Hi there,’ I said to the man. He wore a white vest and jeans. He had two rings on his right hand and a dragon tattoo on his right shoulder.

‘Hi there, young lady,’ he said. His accent sounded Australian. I had to confirm it.

‘Are you an Australian cricketer?’

He laughed. ‘No, mate, I am Australian but I am no cricket player. Like watching it, though.’

‘Aren’t you Philip Lee?’ I made up a name on the spot.

‘Is he even a player?’ he said and sipped his beer.

‘You aren’t Philip?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a drink, young lady?’

‘Well, who are you then?’

‘I’m Mark. What drink would you like?’

‘A tequila shot.’

Mark ordered a pair of shots. I had accomplished two out of the three tasks.

‘Cheers,’ he said as we took the shot.

I put the glass on the table.

‘You here on holiday?’ Mark said.

‘Actually, I am here to get married.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I have to go. Bye, Mark.’

Before he could react I kissed his head.

‘Thanks for the drink,’ I said and scooted out of there.

The girls gave me a standing ovation. Everyone had a shot as a mark of respect for my courage.

‘Okay, no more,’ I said as Mark winked at me from the bar.

The girls were hysterical. We finished four champagne bottles. We ordered four more. I don’t really know when we started to dance. The DJ played tracks like ‘Subah hone na de’ and ‘Baby doll’. Some men in the club tried to flirt with my little cousins. Aditi didi shooed most of them off. We had selfie binges as the fifteen of us took photos in every possible permutation and combination. An hour later, another group of boys arrived at the club. It took us girls a minute to realize the situation.

‘Oh my God. It’s Brijesh jiju and his gang!’ Saloni said.

Brijesh came up to me on the dance floor.

‘Not allowed, not allowed,’ Jyoti said.

‘You were at Club Cubana. What happened?’ Shruti said to Akhil, Brijesh’s maternal cousin.

‘Nothing. We had a few drinks. Then we thought, when we have the most beautiful girls in Goa partying alone, what are we doing here?’ Akhil said.

Shruti blushed. Even though the girls protested at the boys coming here, they secretly liked it. This is how we girls are. At times we want to be wanted, even when we deny it. My bachelorette wasn’t really a singles’ party now. However, I was too drunk to care.

‘You look too beautiful,’ Brijesh said. The DJ switched to Honey Singh’s Blue eyes, a slow couples-only type song, possibly to get drunk single men off the floor.

‘Obviously you have had too much to drink,’ I said. Nobody could find me ‘too beautiful’ otherwise.

‘Well, I have had a few. But I always find you really beautiful,’ Brijesh said.

Sweet, I thought. The tequila in me gave him a hug.

‘I messaged you,’ Brijesh said, ‘several times.’

‘You did? Oh, where’s my phone? I don’t even know where my phone is.’

‘I wanted to check if you would be okay if we come. I tried to stop the boys.’

‘It’s okay. The idea is to have fun. All this segregation is not to be taken seriously,’ I said.

‘Nice music,’ he said.

‘You want to dance?’ I said.

‘I am not much of a dancer,’ Brijesh said.

‘Neither am I,’ I said.

I held his shoulders as we swayed gently to Blue eyes. The girls went into an ‘aww’ and ‘how sweet’ overdrive.

See, I can be a ‘good’ girl. Am I not trying to be a good girl? I told mini-me, my personal chatterbox and eternal critic. Mini-me, however, had slept off. Alcohol does this to her. I guess that is why most people drink anyway. To shut up their inner critic. So they can do whatever the hell they want.

‘Ouch, Brijesh, you are stepping on my toes,’ I said.





4


It was 4 in the afternoon. Everyone who’d partied last night had a hangover. We had come back to the hotel at 6 in the morning and gone straight for breakfast. I remembered sitting with my mother and ordering pancakes. I couldn’t eat much, as I kept dozing off.

‘Wake up. This is so wrong, what you did. Brijesh’s parents will think what an uncultured and irresponsible girl they are getting. Who drinks like this?’ my mother had said, shaking me non-stop.

‘Even their son did. In fact, he puked and passed out at the club,’ I’d said.

‘He’s a boy.’

Even in my exhausted, hungover and sleepy state, my feminist antennae were up. I stared at my mother.

‘So what if he is a boy?’ I said. Clearly, the alcohol-induced confidence had not left me.

‘Eat quickly. Get some rest. There are bhajans today. Please wear something decent. Why do you youngsters have to do such parties the night before bhajans?’

‘Why do you oldies have to do bhajans the day after our party?’

‘Just because you have started to make money you will say anything?’

I had kept quiet. I didn’t mention that this uncultured and irresponsible daughter of theirs was paying for her own wedding. One crore rupees, or 150,000 dollars, wired from my salary account as the wedding budget. Did she even care?