The Love Asana

He had been surprised to find himself drawn into a vortex towards Pari. It made him grow aroused just wondering how it would feel to have her legs wrapped around his. The only sense he could make of it was the cool way she had behaved with him. Pari had treated Vivan with none of the open adoration he was used to getting from women. It irked him no end and was probably why she had got under his skin the way she had.

Even though he had no facts to confirm it as yet, Vivan felt convinced Pari was Deepak’s sister. The background check on Deepak had shown that he had lived in Delhi after leaving his home at sixteen. Then there was the marriage that happened two years ago, by all reports a happy one. In Vivan’s opinion most men ran true to type. Sonia had an outward resemblance to the recent pictures he had seen of Deepak’s wife: tall, strikingly sharp features, a fair complexion. Pari looked nothing like that, he realised with certainty. She was small; her skin was a delicious dusky tone, her nose a pert little button. No. She had to be Deepak’s sister for sure. Blood was thicker than water and no wonder Deepak was so concerned about pushing his own sister forward. The bastard—it was time he realised how it felt for his own sister to be used and discarded.

Pari pushed the image firmly to the back of her mind—her face wide-eyed, her lips parted in anticipation of being very thoroughly kissed. She walked straight to the car, legs still a little wobbly. The rather run-down hatchback she had bought at a throwaway price from Deepak in days when he was doing better had been a huge blessing and the only indulgence she had allowed herself in Delhi. Earlier today she’d been lucky to get parking in the always crowded lot. Now there was a sensational top-end silver sedan parked very close to her car where a bike had been when she’d parked. She’d have to squeeze into the gap to get to her driving seat. Worse, as Pari fumbled around in the outer section of her bag, she realised the keys didn’t seem to be there. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember putting them in there as she normally did. Pari turned her mobile to torch mode, zigzagging the light from it on the ground, hoping to find she’d dropped the key somewhere close.

Vivan reached his car, stopping short at the sight of Pari’s distinct curvaceous little bottom sticking out from under the car next to his.

‘We meet again,’ he said, amazed at the extraordinary coincidence.

She didn’t reply.

‘A little sooner than I thought.’

Silence again. Although, really, Pari thought, the last person she wanted to see was the one towering behind her as she continued to search on her knees for the damned keys.

Does this kind of thing have to happen only to me? A response would only encourage the devil into believing he had got away with his outrageous behaviour in the class.

‘Yoga again? Out on the road?’ Vivan was enjoying seeing her discomfort as she straightened up from under the car.

‘It’s my keys. I can’t find them,’ she bit back, getting up to glare at him.

‘Pity. Just when I was getting truly impressed by your dedication to your subject.’

Pari didn’t think it warranted an answer, so glared at him again as she continued to search.

‘Think again,’ he added helpfully, speaking slowly to help jog her memory. ‘You got out of the car. You shut the door. You pressed the lock switch on your key, I presume, and then?’

‘No. No. This car’s old. I have to lock it manually. I can’t—’ Pari stopped suddenly, annoyed that she had even engaged in dialogue with him, and simultaneously being struck by the common-sense explanation of what had obviously happened. Pari leaned down to look into the car, grimacing as she directed the phone’s light near the dashboard. There, hanging on a little chain, the key dangled jauntily from the ignition switch.

‘I must have pulled the handle to lock it. I was running a bit late today,’ Pari said, dismayed.

‘Let me drop you back,’ Vivan offered, hitting the unlock button on his key to have all the doors to the sleek super-luxury car click open in low understated beeping synchronisation.

Pari clutched her bag and started walking away from Vivan. ‘Thanks. But, no, thanks. That’s not necessary,’ she said, not stopping to think why the idea of sharing an intimate space in a car with this man should feel so dangerous yet exciting. ‘I’ll get an auto,’ she mumbled, her explanation wasted in the wind and Delhi’s heavy night traffic.

Ten minutes later Pari realised the hopelessness of getting an auto to go the short distance of three kilometres. If that wasn’t bad enough, an early winter mist was settling in. The only alternative was to walk home—not the safest of ideas but her best bet for now.

Vivan manoeuvred the car as swiftly as he could through the chaotic parking lot and was relieved to see Pari walking desolately, dodging the speeding cars, jacket huddled close, big bag clutched under her arm, vainly trying to flag down autos. Each one would careen dangerously close and then speed away on hearing the destination, before anyone could call the cops on them.

‘Get in,’ Vivan barked, vehicles already starting to pile up and honk behind his car.

There was no option; Pari quickly lowered herself into the plush low seat of the heavenly warm car and its lemony interiors.

‘Where to?’

‘R.K.Puram. Sector twelve, just behind Sangam, please,’ Pari said, pointedly polite. ‘I hope I’m not taking you out of your way.’

Vivan replied with just the merest shake of his head as he looked straight ahead, making Pari all the more aware of the overwhelming masculinity of him. At least ten inches taller than her, maybe more, he seemed to fill the large car effortlessly. His slim hands on the gear stick and steering wheel, she couldn’t help but notice, were as large and sensuous as she had thought they would be. His fingers were long and well made and she could imagine them caressing an instrument with masterful ease. The same ease with which they would slowly caress a woman’s body …

There was a huge traffic pile-up, Pari saw, and it wasn’t just the usual bottleneck around the dug-up sections where the Metro rail was planned. Some motorcyclist had chosen to cut a red light and the car he’d hit was badly dented, though luckily no one was hurt. This of course meant that at least a half-hour argument would ensue before the vehicles were moved. Unlike many others who kept honking and keeping their cars unnecessarily revved, Vivan had pragmatically switched off the ignition.

Pari looked a little tense, not quite settled into the deep low seat.

‘Might have been faster if I’d walked,’ she mumbled awkwardly.

‘Ah, but not nearly as comfortable.’ Vivan picked up the sleek wafer-thin remote to flick on the high-end music system and decisively selected a channel that was playing a soothing Sufi song. He saw from Pari’s expression that it was something she liked too. He then pressed open a slim freezer chest cleverly designed to sit neatly between the two front seats, which seemed to be stocked with an eclectic selection of beverages. ‘Something to drink?’ he asked, offering her a chilled premixed bottle of cranberry cocktail.

‘Thank you. But I don’t drink,’ Pari said politely.

‘Of course. I should have guessed.’ Vivan held out a bottle of imported sparkling water. ‘Something healthy, I guess, given that you’re a yoga teacher. Oh, not just a yoga teacher … a “Purist” at that!’ he teased.

Pari shook her head, allowing herself a small smile. ‘Actually, I’m more of an adrak ki chai person.’

‘There’s nothing to compare with hot gingery dhaba chai,’ Vivan agreed, to Pari’s surprise.

‘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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