Wo Shaam Kuchh Ajeeb Thi

She couldn't just barge in my house like that! It's been two years!

There she was, sitting in the balcony, sipping what seemed like one of Hitesh's concoctions, talking to him like they were long lost friends. Hitesh - my roommate, and more importantly, my drinking mate and her archenemy. On seeing me, Hitesh excused himself. Where did he learn these manners? Today was turning to be stranger by the minute.

I went after him.
"I thought you hated her", I said.
"She's not half bad!"
"Really? How do you figure?"
"We chatted."
"Just like that? What about all that talk of how she's a b*tch?"
"Well, the vodka helped."
"And you drank vodka! What's gotten into you?"

Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he slammed the door on my face. I had to pause, reign my thoughts before I could go back to the balcony and face her.

There she was, sitting like it was any other day. She nonchalantly, almost absent-mindedly, patted the chair asking me to sit down. As if I was the outsider in this house!

And then she started talking of movies. It was her only connection to the outside world. That, and cricket. She hardly talked of anything else, especially when she was nervous. There was no mention of what happened two years ago and ever since.

"Can I have another one of these?", she touched the empty glass. Her eyes already had the glassy, faraway look.

Meanwhile, Hitesh has taken to playing all sort of inappropriate songs, right from "Wo shaam kuchh ajeeb thi" to "Tum aa gaye ho, noor aa gaya hai". And when he played "Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa to nahin", she said in a spot-on imitation of Suchitra Sen's voice "Do baras lambi thi na?" and started laughing.

Alcohol helped her loosen up. I was dreading 'the talk'. But she never brought it up. I was secretly glad that she was back like nothing had happened. And then she blurted, "I'm moving to Tennessee." I was shocked and probably heartbroken, I think, but the vodka ensured it didn't show on my face.

"Let's watch Before Sunset. We never got to watch it together.", she said. At this point, she was too drunk to understand any of it. But we had both watched it many times, so I played it and ordered pizza. We watched in silence till the pizza came. And then ate in silence. It was our movie, there was no need to say anything. And we were too wasted to be talking.

Midway the movie and the pizza, she fell asleep. At that moment, she didn't look that pretty. But she seemed perfectly at home, right in the middle of those half-filled glasses and half-eaten pizza; the flickering images from TV casting lights and shadows on her face. I knew she didn't want to leave. I just had to make her stay. And that, my lord, is when I killed her.