The Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar Read Free Book Online Page A

Taj. I usually wouldn’t have the appetite to eat anything, especially when I was running a fever, but I was glad to have Deepak’s company. He worked for a large engineering firm located in the western suburbs and was saving up to buy a flat when he turned thirty a year from now; at this time he intended to marry one of the young women that his mother kept throwing at him, have two children and then concentrate on his career and his family. A short man with skin so dark that his thick bristly moustache hardly showed up against it, Deepak had lived in Bombay for eight years and loved every aspect of it. He promised to take me out with him in the evenings when I got better.
    My illness underlined the fact that I was friendless, alone in the city and had little but my work to keep me going. It was while I was in this fragile emotional state that I began to think more about Meher. She had continued to be friendly and perhaps even mildly flirtatious with me in the confident way that seemed to come naturally to rich, attractive Bombay girls, but it was still an office friendship, nothing more. Then, one day, during our lunch hour, she suggested that we walk over to a trendy restaurant by the Kemps Corner flyover for a cold coffee. She had heard that morning she had been granted a partial scholarship by Columbia, and was in a mood to celebrate. That little excursion outside the office was when my feelings towards her changed from friendship into a mild infatuation. I suppose I should be able to recount every aspect of the drink we had, after all it was the first time I had ever gone out with a girl, but unfortunately over time most of the details have thinned away. What I do remember is the unconscious habit she had of flicking back her straight, glossy hair every time she leant forward to sip from her glass. She was intensely pretty in the way petite women can be, and I can recall her even today as she bent over her drink in the dimly lit restaurant, her long slender fingers tucking wayward strands of hair behind her ear, from the lobe of which a single oval of lapis glowed a mineral shade of blue.
    On our way back to the office it began to rain fitfully—it was still the middle of the monsoon season—and she playfully grabbed hold of my arm and suggested we make a run for it. I am sure she meant nothing by the gesture, but the touch of her fingers burned their way into my senses. Although I realized the impossibility of my infatuation—the difference in our status was much too great and she was due to leave for the States in a little over a month—a lifetime of deprivation, when it came to women, distorted my sense of reason. I fantasized about her, intensely, purely, but I did not reveal my feelings to her; I was both too intimidated as well as too proud to lay myself open to rejection.
    And so what began as an infatuation quickly turned into an obsession, in the way that only a first love can. My world turned brown and desolate when the workday ended, and brightened again the next morning. On the days she didn’t turn up at the office I would rage with jealousy at the thought that she might be with someone else, although she had never mentioned a boyfriend. If I were a poet I might have plaited my longings into creative work—after all great art often springs from the chasm that lies between longing and fulfilment—but I was no artist, and so I passed day after day morose and angry for the most part, cheering up when our eyes met or she laughed at something I said. Was she aware of my passionate longing? I think she must have been; I believe beautiful women are always able to sense when men are interested in them. But whether Meher knew or not she gave no outward indication that anything between us had changed. And then the day came for her to leave. We bought a chocolate cake from a patisserie on Nepean Sea Road for her farewell party, Mr Sorabjee made a short speech to thank her for everything she had done and to wish