Milan Vohra - The Love Asana

‘Somehow I didn’t see you feeling that way,’ she couldn’t stop herself from quipping.

‘Why?’ he asked, amused.

Pari looked uncomfortable. ‘I mean … if you’re used to these pricey bottled waters and top-end cars … of course, this car is brilliant … But I thought you’d like everything … you know … um … fancy.’

‘In that case you should know at one time … I probably had a large hand in keeping DK dhaba in business. I wonder if it’s still around, after the flyover came up.’

‘I’ve heard so many people talk about that place. What was so great about that chai ?’ Pari quickly realised she’d actually said her thought aloud.

‘I think it was all those truckers’ diesel fumes. It was right on the highway,’ Vivan said, with a wry smile. ‘In fact nobody could make bun omelette like those guys. I’m sure it was the grease and pollution and sitting out eating it on the charpais that added up to it!’

‘Exactly!’ Pari was amazed that he should think as she did. ‘Nowadays everyone gets so hyper about having chaat and that too with the poor chaat fellow’s hands all hygienically covered in plastic gloves and only mineral water chalega to put into the golguppas . That’s not what eating chaat is about! It just doesn’t taste the same.’

Pari caught the deadpan look on Vivan’s face. ‘You’d rather have the full flavour of where the chaat walah’ s hands went before? Come on. Admit it!’

Pari couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped. ‘I know,’ she said, stretching out the syllable in a long childlike sigh. ‘I know, it’s probably wiser and safer and all that.’

Seeing Vivan’s openly amused expression now and the look that said, ‘Really?’, Pari scrunched up her eyes, chewing on her lower lip in a jokey kind of grimace to laugh. ‘OK, OK, I confess, I’d rather have the full “impure” street taste of how it’s meant to be, than all that clinically made stuff.’

The RJ had gone into a commercial break. A young female voice in the ad complained about her husband heading straight for the TV after he got home. The totally corny commercial plugged a brand of stick-on bindis as a cure-all to get the husband’s attention back to her charms.

Pari turned her face to the car window to smile to herself.

‘So remember … get your Chamki bindi on. Your husband won’t be able to get his eyes off you!’ the shrill female voice-over artiste repeated.

‘Enough already!’ Vivan said, exasperated, as he switched to another channel.

The traffic had started moving.

‘Why?’ Pari giggled. It was interesting to discover that this overpoweringly male student whose brazen sexuality had thrown her quite off balance was not some MCP at least.

Vivan found her laughter infectious. ‘What century is that ad for?’ he said wryly. ‘Can you imagine, in this day and age, they are advocating this woman should, what …? Set a daily alarm or something? Then the moment it’s time for the husband to come home … she should run around frantically … to get her Chamki bindi on!’ Vivan continued in the same deadpan voice.

‘And what if she’s just got back from work in her trousers? Or she’s into powder bindis?’ Pari said, laughing more naturally and openly than she’d thought she could ever have done with this man who was turning out to be easier to talk to than she’d thought.

The car had stopped at a traffic signal and soon enough a young urchin was tapping at Vivan’s window. He held a bunch of crudely made battery-operated plastic fans. The kind that looked like table fans but were about five inches tall, threw up a whisper of air and probably lasted no more than a day.

‘Saab, twenty-five rupees. OK, for you twenty! Boni kara doh . I haven’t sold a thing all day.’

Pari assumed Vivan would keep his window up and drive on when the light changed. To her surprise, he pressed on the button to roll his window down, held out a hundred-rupee note on the ready and took the useless toy from him. He rolled the window up without taking any change from the surprised child’s hands and drove on.

‘Here. Would you like this?’ Vivan put the plastic fan into Pari’s hands.

‘Why?’ she asked him, bunching her shoulders as she shook her head.

‘Why not?’ he answered. ‘At least he wasn’t begging. Why not encourage that?’

It was a sweet gesture and Pari felt a wonderful warmth in her belly that he had done it. She contained her sudden urge to reach forward and touch his palm. Instead she fidgeted with trying to switch the little fan on. Surprisingly, it did, almost instantly, throwing out more noise than air. ‘Look. It works too!’ she said playfully, turning the toy fan to her face and feeling a light shaft of air.

Vivan saw her face, framed by the loose strands of her rich brown hair blowing gently, in the glow of the mercury lights of the road.

‘Even better,’ he said, his head turned to one side, his eyes not leaving her face.

On impulse, Pari turned the fan towards him and playfully brought it close to the curve of his neck, watching mesmerised as his hair blew about silkily. She stopped suddenly as Vivan moved one hand away from the steering wheel to grab her wrist and pull her hand down. In a second, Pari was again acutely aware of the scorching chemistry that had constantly thrummed between them below the surface. She let the fan drop to the carpeted car floor; intensely conscious of the touch of his fingers still burning their impact on her wrist, even though his hand had gone back to the steering wheel … still imagining those sensuous fingers of his now on her waist, pulling her close into his body.

‘I guess it works,’ Vivan said, his voice thick with desire. ‘In more ways than one.’

Pari reined in her fantasies as she stammered an apology. ‘I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you.’

Luckily they had already pulled up outside her apartment block. Vivan brought the car to a halt, putting a brake on her uncontrolled imagination. After what had almost happened in her class, the last thing she needed was to let him see the effect he was having on her. I should say thank you and get out quickly. Not insanely have these repeated lustful fantasies about the feel of his lips against mine

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