The Anatomy of an Infidelity Ch. 01

Arup almost flew off his chair when he read that, and started typing his response.

- Oh wow, you are good! When I wrote that, I was actually reading a book of poetry by Ginsberg. I guess some of it seeped in. Good catch. So you are into poetry as well? There are unknown depths to you, young lady!

After that, he had to go into the daily evening meeting of the senior staff to take stock of where everyone stood in terms of content and advertisements. This meeting was usually very excruciating. It was held in a glass conference room right next to where the new hires sat. From where Arup was sitting, he had a direct view of Rasika at her desk. She was rapidly typing something, looking intently at the screen. She seemed very excited about whatever she was writing. Arup looked at her petite form, dressed in yet another kurta, cardigan, and jeans, hunched over the computer. She had half a smile on her face and her eyes were twinkling. She did not seem to have noticed him through the glass wall though.

She kept typing for a few more minutes. And then she logged off from her computer, gathered her things and started walking towards the door. That's when she saw Arup and the others having a meeting. The two of them made eye contact. She smiled, waved, and walked out. Arup watched her walk away. For the first time, he found himself noticing her body. She wore loose simple clothes, but seemed to have a decent figure. Shapely, even. He had heard some chatter among other senior editors about how a couple of the other new hires had a crush on her. He could see why. She was cute and also clearly an interesting person. What had she been typing? Was it a reply to him?

Paying only nominal attention to whatever the ad guy was saying, he took his phone out of his pocked and checked his email. Sure enough!

- Hehe, yes, I am somewhat of a poetry nerd. I get it from my dad, actually. He is a retired air force officer who would read and write poetry in his free time. From the time I was little, he read me a lot of that poetry. English, American, Hindi, and Urdu. Plus I grew up in Varanasi. There's not much to do there, honestly, than read and read and read some more. So many of my summer and Diwali vacations were spent with dad going to the library, checking out different books of poetry, and then reading them together and discussing them. He is also the reason for my musical tastes I guess. He is a big fan of Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, and if you think about it, from there to Leonard Cohen or Fleetwood Mac is a natural progression. Oh gosh, I am rambling! Sorry! Have a good night. Hope the piece I wrote doesn't take up much of your time in editing. Bye.

Arup read the email and smiled. So she was from Varanasi. Her accent did suggest that she was not originally from Pune. It was nice that she had a dad who introduced her to poetry and music. Arup's own dad found such things a waste of time. He had been very disappointed when his son did not go into engineering or medicine. And seemed to derive an almost perverse pleasure from the fact that his musical career went nowhere.

"Arup! Are you with us?" his reverie was interrupted by Shinde.

"Hmmm? Sorry. I was thinking of something else."

"I am saying...what about Sujay's replacement? Have you found anyone? This Friday is his last day."

"Oh fuck! Sujay! I completely forgot!"

Sujay was a very competent copy-editor who worked with Arup on the pages. He was moving to a publishing house, and had given his 6 week notice a while ago. It was Arup's job to hire a replacement.

"Well, you only have a week left!"

"I interviewed and shortlisted a few people. But they are either not very good or then are asking for too much money. I will put out another ad tomorrow."

"You will put out an ad tomorrow, then interview more people...and find someone by Friday?" Shinde sounded skeptical.

"I could try." Arup shrugged.

"Why don't we promote from within?" Seema spoke up.

"Within? Who?"

"How about Rasika? We have talked about how her language skills are impeccable."

"Sure, but she has been working here for just a month writing fluff pieces. And has no other experience. She was a call center person before this!" Shinde said.

"Trust me, sir." Seema said solemnly. "I have been in this business long enough to gauge skills. And her skills are wasted writing those fluff pieces. She spends hours and hours talking to people about nonsense like pav bhaji stalls and mediocre art exhibitions. And she writes a damn good copy for sure. But it takes up so much of her day. Instead, let one of the other monkeys write that same nonsense, and she could edit and clean it up in half an hour. What do you think, Arup?"

Arup looked around the room. He felt a little weird, mainly because he had just been reading an email from the young woman right before this conversation. But the gist of what Seema was saying was very valid.

"I agree. Better have someone like her on edits, re-writes, even layout. Even if I interview others, given the pay, I doubt we'll find someone better at such short notice."

"Okay then. I will talk to her tomorrow. I'm sure she will be happy. This means a pay raise and another bullet point on her CV." Shinde said. "But remember Arup, she will be leaving eventually. So keep looking for a long term replacement."

The next afternoon, Arup parked his car in the building garage and walked towards the entrance. As was his daily habit, before walking in, he stood outside and lit a cigarette. He had barely taken two drags when he saw Rasika get out of an auto, holding her big purse, and walk towards him. She saw him and her face lit up. She almost ran towards him.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Arup!" she said, jumping up and down. For a second, his eyes drifted to her heaving chest. Her standard garb of a cardigan over a loose kurta usually hid the fact that she was very well endowed. After that natural male instinct driven second-long gaze, he looked up at her smiling face.

"For what?" he chuckled.

"Shinde sir just told me about the promotion. Thank you so much for choosing me." she looked genuinely thrilled.

Arup felt like telling her that he had absolutely no hand in the decision. It had been Seema's idea. Left to himself, he probably would have conducted more interviews. He had not even thought about her for the job. But she looked so very happy. So he just took another drag of his cigarette and said,

"You're welcome. You deserve it."

"Thank you again. I won't disappoint you, I promise." And then she ran inside. Before she did though, Arup thought he saw her pause for a second and inhale the cigarette smoke in one deep breath.

Although their work together officially started only next week, their email conversations continued at an increasing frequency. They were mostly about music and poetry, but occasionally, Arup noticed that she tended to ramble on about her personal life. And he learned a lot more about her than he knew about all his other colleagues combined. Here are a few samples.

On her boyfriend and how she ended up in Pune

- I was in the final year of BCom in Varanasi. And Nitin, who grew up in Pune, was in the second year of a masters program at IIT. We met at a fest at his college. And everything just clicked. We fell in love, and met each other's parents, everyone approved. He got placed at tech company in Pune. Our parents wanted us to get married. But we decided to wait until I get a masters degree as well. And I was honestly sick of Varanasi. Wanted to get out. So I applied for jobs in Pune. Got into a call center. After our final exams, I moved here. But he then got an offer from a financial consulting firm in Mumbai. So now he is in Mumbai. I am in Pune. I had a chance to move to a call center in Mumbai. But then this job offer came along, and mass comm is my dream. So I decided to stay here. I love Pune. It is so much cleaner, safer, and more vibrant than Varanasi. But I feel a bit lonely here. All the people I know here are his childhood friends. And we only get to meet on weekends when he comes down from Mumbai or I go there. But hopefully in a few months, I will get into a mass comm program in Mumbai. And we will be together again. Gosh, sorry, I am rambling again.

On her family background

- I am an only child. My dad is a retired air force officer and mom is a retired teacher. They had me very late in life. The marriage had its issues, and there were periods of separations and they fought a lot. But they both love me. And now they have more or less come to peace with each other. For my sake. Which is why I feel extra pressure to do well in life. To make them proud.

On her life in Pune

- I really like Pune. But one thing I miss about Varanasi is our big house, where I had my own room, and a big backyard and a roof. Here, I am sharing a small room in a PG. The old aunty and uncle who run the PG are very nice. They like me. And the others girls, including my roommate, are also nice. But those girls are all college students, and go to the same college. So I feel like an outsider. And also I am 3-4 years older than them, so there's a bit of a generation gap. Nitin keeps saying I should get an apartment of my own, and he will pay for it. But that does not feel right to me. I was raised to be an independent self-sufficient woman. I don't want to live off his income. As much as I love him. Gosh, I wish Nitin had taken that job in Pune. I understand the Mumbai opportunity is better for his career. But I miss him. The only real friend I have here in Pune is him. And he isn't even here! Sorry, rambling again.

Arup read all these ramblings with a smile on his face. In them, he saw a glimpse of a past era of his own life. That time in your early 20s, when you are unsure of so much about your life. From your career to your personal relationships to in general, your place in the world. He had been like that once. Now...well, now he was at a stable place in life. Not an ideal place. But he knew things could be worse.

He sent her short and sympathetic responses to these personal ramblings. He was old enough to know that when a woman rambles or vents like this, she is not really looking for any solutions or answers, but just a sympathetic ear or a sounding board. So he sent responses like,

- Don't worry about rambling, Rasika. I completely understand how you feel.

and

- That sounds tough. Quite a dilemma. I so get what you mean. Financial independence is key.

And so on.

And in an odd way, this made Arup seem more like a sympathetic ear to her than her own boyfriend, whom she loved a lot. She was 22, he was 24. They were both each other's first boyfriend and girlfriend. So they were not experienced in the complexities of interpersonal relationships. When Rasika vented about things like these, instead of just listening, Nitin would try to "solve" her problems. Or then try to tell her she was over-thinking things. And she did not appreciate this.

When they were together in Varanasi, it had been a blissful period with no fights at all. They were discovering each other, emotionally and physically. Everything was hunky-dory. But a long-distance relationship tests the most committed of couples. And Nitin and Rasika were no exception. They started arguing with increasing frequency. First once a week, then daily, then multiple times a day. if you had asked either of them about the arguments a few days later, they could not have told you the topic. They were that insignificant. But both were young, impetuous, and had big egos. So fights dragged on and on.

And there was a big problem from both sides in understanding each other's travails and priorities. Rasika failed to understand how important the job in Mumbai was to Nitin, and also, how demanding it was in terms of time and mental space. A lot of times, he could not come to Pune as planned or talk to her on the phone, not because he didn't want to, but he could not. But Rasika did not understand that Nitin was no longer the IIT student at the final stages of his course with a lot of free time and flexibility. He had others to answer to. Similarly, Nitin did not realize what a tough time Rasika was having adjusting to her lonely life in Pune. How hard it was for her there, even though she liked the city itself. He found himself thinking that she was whining too much, and a few times even said that to her. And that hurt her feelings even more.

So although Nitin and Rasika really loved each other and were committed to each other, they found themselves arguing and fighting almost daily. And although Arup and Rasika had no real feelings towards each other, except for friendship, they were interacting regularly in very nice and cordial terms. And also bonding over a common love of music and poetry.

And again, although neither Arup nor Rasika had any untoward or immoral feelings about each other, the circumstances were aligned in such an odd way that one bad event could lead to disaster.

And that bad event was lurking around the corner.

The next Monday was the day that Rasika officially started working under Arup. She had been so excited about getting the job that he expected her to be bouncing off the walls on the first day. But when she walked in at 4 PM as scheduled, she looked almost glum. She spent the first hour moving her stuff from her old desk in the content area to her new desk in the editing area. His desk was the big one in the corner. There were a few others around him. And Rasika got Sujay's old desk which was about 20 feet away from Arup's, right in front of him. And as he watched her arrange her stuff, he knew that the usually bubbly young lady had something on her mind. Instead of asking her in front of everyone and making her feel awkward, he used the mode of communication they had been using extensively since that coffee shop meeting. He emailed on her personal account.

- Everything okay?

She replied soon.

- Yeah, everything is fine.

He shrugged, and got back to work. A few minutes later, his personal email pinged. It was Rasika. But from a different email account.

- Sorry. I didn't want to go into details on that other account, because Nitin has the password to that account. So I created this one. Everything is not okay. We had a big fight. We were up till almost dawn arguing over the phone. I will tell you later.

Arup read this and found it weird that her boyfriend had the password to her email account. But he decided not to mention it. He sent a very plain reply.

- Oh sorry to hear that. Hope everything works out. Let me know if I can help.

She replied soon

- Thanks. It is too detailed to type it all out. I will tell you about it in a while.

Arup then got down to work. He gathered his staff around, including Rasika, who was the newcomer. He talked to her, boss to employee, about her responsibilities and deadlines. She listened carefully, taking notes in her diary. He then assigned work to other people in the team and got down to work. He looked at Rasika once in a while, and saw she was intently staring at her screen and typing. A while later, there was a ping because of a mail from her. But it was from his work account, not personal account. She had just finished editing an article a lot faster than Sujay ever would. He read it. It was flawless. Seema had been right. This was a much more productive use of Rasika's talents.

An hour later, Arup got up and headed out for his smoking break. He was standing outside the main entrance, cigarette in hand, when Rasika walked out.

"Hi Arup. I thought it best to talk to you on your smoking break. That way no one else is around." she said, sounding tired.

"Oh sure. Not a problem." he said, moving his posture so the smoke wasn't blowing in her face.

"So...here's the thing. Nitin and I had a big fight. He had some time off saved up. And he was going to spend the week here. But then..."

Arup smoked, listened, and nodded. In short, Rasika was complaining about her boyfriend cancelling his trip to Pune. And then the arguments that resulted from that. They touched upon a variety of things, like her loneliness, and her preparation for the graduate entrance exam, and so on. Arup nodded and listened. But didn't "really" listen. He liked his colleague, and had been nice to her. But he really did not care much about her romantic problems. There was no reason for him to get too involved or anything. All he cared about was that she was a good employee. So he partially zoned her out as she vented for about five minutes. And then when she paused, he said,

"You are absolutely right. I completely see where you are coming from." he then wondered if that response was a good fit to her rant.

"Thank you. Why can't he understand that? I love him but sometimes..."

And she launched into another long rant. In the middle of it, Arup's cigarette finished. So he lit a second one and kept nodding. And then she finished her rant with,

"...am I being too stupid? Am I being petty?"

"Not at all, Rasika." he earnestly said. "You are not being petty at all. And anything but stupid. Perish the thought!"

"Thank you so much." she said, almost fighting back tears. "Thank you for listening. I am sorry I rambled so much."

"Don't worry about it." he said and waved his arm. That made some of the smoke waft towards her. She seemed to inhale it again.

"Anyway, I'll get back to work." she said and went in.

He followed her a few minutes later, feeling a bit annoyed. It was one thing when she was talking music and poetry with him. That was interesting stuff. But all this drama and whining about her boyfriend? He didn't need that. He was her boss now. What he needed her to do was work, efficiently.

But that day and the next two days, he realized that she was working even more efficiently than Sujay ever did. There was no problem with her work. She did collar him once more during a smoking break and rant a bit more about her boyfriend. This time, it had something to do with how he was more obsessed with her entrance exam prep than she was. And it made her feel like he would be ashamed of her unless she got into a good postgrad program. Again, Arup made the right noises. And Rasika felt good. At one time, she asked,

"Tell me, Arup, would you ever try to micromanage your wife's career decisions?"

He laughed at this question. His wife had a wildly more successful career than he did. The very idea was hilarious. But he didn't say it that way exactly.

"Hahaha, no, just the very concept sounds ridiculous."

"Thank you! Why can't Nitin think that way? Why does he have to be so controlling?" Rasika sulked.

"Well, what can you do." he shrugged, stubbing out his cigarette.

This whining was getting annoying, but simultaneously, Rasika's work was getting better and better. With her doing the copy-edits and proofing, a lot of their work was getting finished well before time. The way things worked in Sujay's days, they would be working simultaneously with the ad sales guys until the very end at 1 AM. But she was so efficient that on just her 4th day at work, they all got done at 1130 PM. As it turned out, ad sales was also finished early. So the page was finalized and sent off to the press so early that the press manager called to confirm if this really was the final draft.

"Well everyone, great job. We get to leave early today." he happily said, and there was a cheer around the room.

Everyone packed up and walked out, including Rasika. Arup still had to do some final formalities in the system which took another ten minutes. When he walked out and lit a cigarette, he saw Rasika sitting on the steps, talking on the phone. Clearly, she was having an argument with her boyfriend. And a big one. She was loud and profane. And although the street outside was really empty that late, the few people still around were staring.