A one-hour flight from Srinagar to Delhi is surely no big deal. But my palms were oozing sweat, my heart jumping up into my throat and back down again, my brain sounding alarm bells like a triggered siren… we were seconds from touch down. I was waiting for the grind of the wheels upon the tarmac of the runway – the satisfying crunch of a landing. But suddenly the engine went full throttle, the plane accelerated and tilted and within seconds we’d gone from a descent into a full-on ascent. What the fuck was going on? Did the pilot just miss the runway? My heart was having a fit – it was like the dreaded bungee jump all over again as the plane lurched and dipped over Delhi. I tried to speak to the guy in the seat next to me but he didn’t seem interested in making conversation, he stretched his arm across my lap filming out the window with his phone as I tried not to be sick. The runway farce happened twice, so the third time the plane approached the runway I was praying with all my might we would strike a landing.
Luckily there was no fourth attempt and I’m still alive. I did not fuss with booking a hotel room. I got a taxi straight to Connaught Place and soon found myself in a bar called The Lord of the Drinks. I needed a few after getting my nerves wrecked on the most obnoxious plane descent ever.
Till Death to us Party, read a neon sign across the back wall of the bar. The Lord of the Drinks is great. Even better than Dr Zombie although a bit more expensive. I drank a few bottles of Kingfisher and chilled the fuck out. I later ordered a very spicy paneer pizza, that was drizzled with a delectable orange coloured sauce… spicy burger sauce perhaps? The pizza was very thin and I usually like my pizzas thick. But this pizza I really appreciated, heavy on the toppings with hardly any crust.
I reluctantly pulled myself away from the live music of The Lord of the Drinks. Believe it or not, I was heading to meet up with Malik. Yes, he eventually replied to me. I met him back at Bistro 55 where we had sat before just a handful of days ago. We sat on the exact same table. And this time I sat where he had sat facing me before.
Now the dynamic between us was changed once again. The strange tension was still in the air, but on both sides anger and frustration brewed, packed tightly behind our courteous exchanges. This all ended when Malik tried to cuff me round the head when I told him I thought he’d abandoned me. ‘You ruined all my plans,’ he blurted out.
Apparently, he was really going to come and meet me in Kashmir. I thought this was a bit rich. He wasn’t messaging me or anything. How on earth was I supposed to know that? I accused him of lying to me. He’d told me he would come up one day later.
He explained clearly why this had not happened. I thought his explanation was reasonable. He had planned to do so, but stuff came up he hadn’t expected, he had ‘lost’ half the money I paid him to stay with his family, and because of this he felt he couldn’t come to stay with his family because they would ask for the money and he didn’t have it. He said he was too anxious to tell me on the phone that he had already lost the money I had paid him. Finally, he accused me of not trusting him.
I pointed out that I had put a ridiculous amount of trust in him. I had put more trust in him than he arguably deserved. I had taken a 12 hour bus followed by a 5 hour jeep all the way to Kashmir, trusting in his word that he would come the next day.
‘Then why did you leave my family?’ He rebuked me. He accused me of being a “typical westerner.” ‘You think we are all terrorists or something?’
I wanted to roll my eyes at this. I tried to explain to him how uncomfortable I felt there despite how nice his family were. At the end of the day he hadn’t been answering my messages, so of course I thought he’d abandoned me.
Malik revealed to me that his brother had called him on the phone while I was there and shouted at him: ‘what kind of people are you sending up here?’ Telling Malik that I did not feel comfortable in their company, that I didn’t trust them etc. In a way it was comforting to get such perfect clarification that Ahmad and his father had been thinking exactly what I feared they were. But I also told Malik that Ahmad constantly asking me about gays and bisexuals was making me feel uncomfortable. Especially when Malik had expressly told me that I was not to mention that kind of stuff.
Malik and I met each other’s gaze head on. There was warmth and anger there. We were both intensely frustrated with each other. ‘Out of ten’ I said to him, ‘how angry are you with me?’
‘Three’ he said. And then asked me how angry I was with him.
‘Four,’ I said.
He smiled. Then he suggested we go to Rishikesh together. Tonight. I had not booked my hotel yet. It was completely possible. My brain began shifting into gear, weighing up the prospect.
‘But you have already been to Rishikesh,’ he added suddenly. This was too true. I’d spent three weeks in Rishikesh… no…. I wouldn’t go back now. I had made a commitment to exploring Delhi for my remaining time In India. I wasn’t going rushing off again for the umpteenth time.
Then Malik told me to change my flights. To not go to America, to get a refund, a cancellation to change the dates, anything I could, and to come to Kashmir with him this very night. I told him I couldn’t change the dates. ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘You’re bullshitting me.’
‘You accuse me of not trusting you,’ I said. ‘When I went all the way to Kashmir on my own with nothing but your word that you would join me a day later. Yet you didn’t turn up. And now you won’t even trust that I’m telling you the truth.’
Then he believed me. The waiter came along. ‘Mujhe lassi kela chahiye,’ I said.
Malik chuckled. I had attempted to ask for a banana lassi. ‘Mujhe kel(ay) ki lassi chahiye’ is what I should have said, Malik explained to me.
We sat at the table and sipped our drinks. I looked at Malik from the angle he would have looked at me last time. Behind him a palm stood up from the edge of the balcony, and behind it the sky was a dark, dirty red. It was gone 9pm and the air was 40 degrees Celsius. I wanted to take Malik’s picture with the palm and the red sky behind him, but my phone had run out of storage space. Though it hardly matters. The image is imprinted firmly in my mind.
We eventually departed and Malik helped me find a nearby hotel room. It was a decent space with a large double bed, a small balcony, a desk and chair and a bathroom for 1200 rupees a night. (£12)
I lay on the bed with Malik. He told me to put on a film. A comedy. I got up Netflix and put on American Pie: The Wedding. We watched it and eventually began to spoon. Malik is so little. It’s a wonder he is 36, his body is so small. It is so difficult to think of him as a man in his thirties, he feels to me younger than myself. The only thing to give away his time on Earth are the flecks of grey in the scruff around his cheeks and chin.
He laughed a bit at the movie at first but then fell to silence and seemed restless. I pulled him away from the screen. We began to undress. I brought my lips towards his but he pulled away from me. ‘You have been drinking alcohol’ he said. He refused to kiss me. I offered to brush my teeth. (Though I had in fact already brushed them). He wasn’t interested. He got up off the bed and began to dress himself.
‘Are you leaving?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is not working between us.’
‘What did you think of the movie?’ I asked.
‘It was boring actually.’ He said. ‘It was a dirty movie. A dirty American movie… American shit.’ He added as an afterthought.
I lay unmoving on the bed. ‘You have to kiss before you leave,’ I said.
‘No…’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I really do not want to.’
Within seconds he’d opened the door and walked out without looking back, and the door swung itself shut behind him. With the click of the door, loneliness ravaged the room; it ate up all the air like a deafening silence and pinned me to the bed. The only sound was the soft hum of the aircon. And I listened to it intently. After everything that had happened, tonight would be painful. But I knew that come morning, I would not give him a second thought.
