Page 95 of 12 Years
‘Do you need a bank loan?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Car insurance? RO filter? Property in Panvel?’
‘No, not needing anything.’
‘That’s a shame. I can give you good deals.’
‘Who this? S for what?’
‘S for Salman Khan. Okay, bye,’ I said and disconnected the call.
‘Payal,’ I said. ‘Hi.’
I stood in the Express Towers lift, which I’d been taking up and down for two hours. I’d arrived at 5.30 p.m. I couldn’t wait in the lobby because her SWAT-team-like mother would come to pick her up. I couldn’t show up directly at her office either. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed in front of her colleagues. So I decided to wait for her in the lifts. This meant going up and down non-stop until Payal left work and entered one of the lifts to go down to the lobby. There were two lifts serving her floor, and Payal could take either of them. In other words, this dumb approach of mine had a one-in-two chance of working. But I still did it. I took one lift up, then came out and went down in the other. Once on the ground floor, I switched back to the other lift and went up again. I was ready to keep doing this until I bumped into Payal. Does this sound ridiculous? Yes. But love makes men do ridiculous things. It makes them scale walls, climb mountains and, I’ve heard, even fight wars. I was only taking the elevator.
It took me two days to finally see her. On the second day, at 7.30 p.m., Payal entered the same lift that I was in. I had a minute, quite literally, to make my elevator pitch to save my love life. Apart from Payal and me, there was one otherperson already in the lift—a distinguished-looking man in his sixties.
Payal took a few seconds to spot me in the lift. ‘Saket,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think I’m doing here? Trying to meet you.’
‘I can’t. Mom’s downstairs,’ Payal said, fear on her face. ‘She can’t see you here. Please, Saket, understand my situation.’
‘Are you serious? What about my situation? Do you have any idea what I’m going through?’ I said, my voice loud enough for the other man to look up from his phone.
He looked at Payal and me in quick succession. I ignored him.
‘Payal, I need ten minutes with you. Alone,’ I said.
‘Saket, if my mother sees us, she’ll make me quit my job—the only semblance of sanity I have in my life.’
‘She won’t see us, don’t worry. That’s why I’ve been going up and down in these lifts the past two days.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Can we get off at the parking level? Or any other level? We can just stand somewhere and talk.’
‘I already told Mom I’m coming down.’
I checked the display panel—we’d already reached the tenth floor.
‘Can you tell her you forgot something in office?’
‘Fine, I will. But where do we go?’
‘The parking? We can stand and talk.’
‘It’s dark and smelly there,’ Payal said, ‘with drivers all around.’
‘Do you think I care about all that at this point?’ I said.
‘Excuse me,’ the old man said, startling both of us.
‘Yes?’ I said, somewhat irritated.
‘I’m Lokesh Agrawal. I have a law firm, and our offices are on the tenth and third floors. If you need a private space to talk in, you can sit in one of our meeting rooms on the third floor …’
