ME, MIA, MULTIPLE

By Debashish Irengbam

Three overbearing sisters. One snoopy therapist. One doped-out flatmate. And six failed suicide attempts so far.
Killing yourself should be easy, right? Pop a few sleeping pills, lie on a railway track and let the train do the rest of the work. Neat, swift, painless. Yet dramatic. What could possibly go wrong with Jeevan Raikar's plan? Well, this: a girls' night out happening at the graveyard next door, starring a vodka-swilling blackmailer and her dead mother. And so, Jeevan - who ought to be dead by now, mind you - is stuck with bubbly Mia, raging Tanya and sensuous Alisha. Which might seem like an enviable situation to be in, but for one tiny catch. They are all the same person. Me, Mia, Multiple is a debut that cares little for convention: a romance with a twist, a twisted romance, a romantic twister. Whatever you want to call it, you'll tear through it with sheer pleasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9789351770787

Debashish Irengbam

Debashish Irengbam is a Mumbai-based scriptwriter by profession -- and now a novelist as well. He has written episodes for TV crime thrillers and youth-based shows like Dil Dosti Dance, Adaalat, Aahat, Webbed and Gumrah.Charlie Next Door is his second novel with HarperCollins Publishers India, following Me, Mia, Multiple, which was published in 2015.You can find out more about him on www.debashishirengbam.com

Book preview

1

To be passed on to the police and/or family members upon receipt.

My name is Jeevan Raikar. I am an employee of SSY Technologies Pvt. Ltd, where I work as a customer care executive. I am survived by my three sisters, Mrs Seema Wadekar, Mrs Kanchan Dandekar and Mrs Meeta Gokhale. By the time you find this note, I will have been run over by a train on one of the railway tracks near the Harbour line. In the event of my face being disfigured beyond recognition, I would like to state my birthmarks: I have a honey-coloured mole on the lower left side of my abdomen and a tiny black mole near my left ankle. You will also find my office ID card in the right pocket of my trousers.

I do not blame anyone for my actions.

As for motive, let’s just say I got tired of pretending. Pretending to live. Pretending to be happy. Pretending to be blind to how fucked up this world is and how, at the end of it all, nothing really matters. And if nothing really matters, then what is the point of existing? Why go on with this sham? So I reject my role. I quit. Because that’s a right no one can take from me. Not even God.

Still, to the few to whom it matters, I am sorry.

– Jeevan Raikar

Damn. That’s what my suicide note should have been.

Short, simple and poetic. A punch to the heart. Instead, what did I go with?

I can’t take it any more. I give up. Goodbye, dear world.

Two weeks of deliberating, referencing, editing, rewriting, and that’s the crap I come up with.

Figures. Mediocre joke of a life, mediocre joke of a farewell.

For a brief moment, I consider texting the whole thing to my flatmate, Kapil. I could ask him to quote this as my final suicide note when the police get involved, but then I remember I don’t have my mobile phone. Didn’t see the point of carrying any material possessions along for this leg of the journey. Besides, it’s too late. That train could arrive any time now.

The blunt steel edge hurts the back of my neck, so I fold an arm behind my head and gaze up at the half-moon winking at me between those thin wafts of cloud sailing above.

It feels strange, lying here in the middle of a lonely, pebble-ridden railway track, breathing in the cool night air with its lingering promise of winter, watching the cosmic darkness stare down upon me. Took me a long time to find a clean spot, but it was worth it. No faeces, no garbage, no stench, and with a nice view of the night sky. Could have been romantic too, if not for the damn mosquitoes and the lack of a partner. They never show mosquitoes in movies, I realize. The hero and heroine can sit for hours in any goddamn corner of the park or street or beach and not once have to swat away any mosquitoes. The force field of fantasy keeps them safe, I guess. They have no more problems in life than they are supposed to, and if malaria and dengue aren’t part of the script, there’s nothing to be worried about in the first place.

Force field of fantasy. That’s nice.

I wonder if life also follows a script. Seems more like a daily soap, though, considering how it stretches. So, before entering the saga, I guess you have your share of footage planned from the very beginning, with the personal tracks, back story, twists and turns, and finally the exit. If that’s the case, I would really like to have a word with the makers once I get up there. Some serious rewrites were needed in my case, and a lot of plot points seem pretty contrived.

I can even predict what the next episode is going to be like. Seema di will rush to my other sisters, Meeta di and Kanchan di, and give them the horrific news that their younger brother was ‘accidentally’ crushed by a train while ‘crossing the tracks’. The camera will zoom in on the shocked, horrified faces of each character in the room. Two or three episodes will be spent on funeral arrangements, flashbacks and the mourning period of each of the major characters, after which either one of them will get pregnant or a new character will step in, like a breath of fresh air for the viewers, a welcome break from all the rona-dhona. A new track will begin, and gradually, the memory of that bro-who-died-abruptly will fade away.

But that’s wishful thinking. I don’t know if my role was even that important to begin with.

I feel bad for Dr Sen, though. All those hours spent in her cozy little office, with those pictures of kittens in ice cream bowls and fishes swimming in aquariums, as she patiently listened to my ceaseless rants and moans and complaints; all those counselling sessions which ended with me assuring her I felt better and more hopeful even though I didn’t, all the smiles and kind words and positive energy she invested in me – all for zilch. I hope she doesn’t blame herself. She always told me she understood how I felt whenever I was down. If that’s true, she will also understand the reason behind my decision. And if she doesn’t, well, she can always blame it on the law of averages. Not every patient will be a success story.

I check my watch. Three minutes. Those sleeping pills should kick in right about now.

Swatting another mosquito away from my neck, I decide to pass my time visualizing the funeral. Not many people know this, but there is a certain romance in thinking about your death, or rather its aftermath, because no matter how boring or lonely or uneventful your life may have been, in death you are always the star, the centre of attention, the one in the spotlight for those few moments between mourning and memory.

Which of my sisters will grieve the longest? Maybe Seema di. She always seemed the most concerned about me. But I’m sure all of them will feel the pain equally. Might even publish an obituary, their elaborate use of flowery words covering up the lack of noteworthy achievements on the deceased’s part, while they state what a great loss my death has been. Can’t say the same for their husbands, though. I’m sure all three of those jackasses would heave huge sighs of relief at being free of their freak of a bro-in-law, except for Jatin jeeju maybe. Poor bugger had no idea what he was getting into when he handed me those sleeping pills at his store, just so he could get rid of me before the other customers arrived.

Will they put my photo next to mother’s? Which photo will they choose? God, I hope they go with the graduation one. It’s the only one in which my buck teeth don’t show. I hate my teeth. I think I should have mentioned that in my note.

I wonder if Pallavi will come to my funeral. Fat chance. She’ll be too busy humping Bouncer in the back of the office storage cabinet, as always. Someone will mention my sad demise on their Facebook status, and her only emotional investment will be adding a sad smiley in the comments section: ‘ 15879.png  ’.

Two months of unbridled love and passion, dreams of an entire lifetime spent with her, every prayer read with her name on my lips, will all boil down to this ‘ 15879.png  ’.

See the kind of bullshit I’m escaping? I wonder how many likes her sad emoticon will bag.

Where is that damn train already? The pills seem to be kicking in, though. I’m feeling more and more relaxed. Pretty soon, this will all be over. The soothing darkness will take over my senses, and in one swift rattle of wheels, I’ll be gone. A lot of people say it’s a privilege to die in your sleep. What they don’t say is that, like most privileges in life, this one can be manipulated too. Wonder if I’ll set a trend.

My eyelids feel a little heavy, so I close them. I guess this is the point where I’m supposed to get flashes of my whole life in one go, like a film reel on steroids, but my brain is just too doozy to concentrate. I do see my mother, though, and she looks beautiful. Sad, but beautiful. I wonder why I always see her in a Kanjeevaram saree even though she’s not south Indian. I wonder how I even know the saree is Kanjeevaram. I wonder if Bouncer puts on a condom before bonking my ex-soulmate. I wonder how long I will be missed before becoming just another garlanded memory. I wonder if reincarnation actually exists, and if it does, is there an official procedure for getting expelled from the system and just remaining a spirit forever?

My thoughts slow to a grinding halt, and I reach that precipice between sleep and consciousness. The point of no return. I know this is when I should be praying, but I can’t. No more pretending. No more regrets. Except for one, maybe.

I should have written a better suicide note.

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Darkness. Cool, hollow darkness. Gusts of icy wind caressing my cheeks. A trace of lavender in the air. A tiny, blurred source of illumination, getting brighter and brighter as I slowly open my eyes to see a blinding flash of white light.

For an instant, my heart stops. The light at the end of the tunnel. Shit just got real. I did it. Never saw the tunnel, but don’t think it matters.

Then, just as suddenly as it came, the light disappears in a fading echo of a vehicle whirring past, leaving tiny black spots in my field of vision. I try to focus on the road ahead, lit up by headlights.

Buildings passing by. The silent hum of an engine. I am in a car. A big car, a Honda from the look of it. Strapped to the passenger seat. Someone is driving. For some reason, I’m afraid to look at the driver. I close my eyes again and try to gather my thoughts.

My mind is a whirl. My neck feels like lead, and as I try to move my legs, my thighs cramp up terribly. I wince in pain. It catches the attention of the driver. To my surprise, a woman’s voice calls out: ‘Are you awake?’

I open my eyes and swivel my gaze right. Another set of headlights illuminates every bit of her face in a fleeting flash. Interesting is the word that comes to mind. Not pretty, or sweet, or ugly, or average, or amiable. Interesting. Large eyes, a small mouth, an aquiline nose, pale complexion, shiny, long razor-straight hair – the kind you see on schoolgirls in Japanese horror films right before they become ghosts.

I wonder if she is a ghost. Or a messenger. Like, the messenger of death. Maybe I’m on my way to heaven. That would be cool. A messenger in a Honda.

She stares at me. ‘How are you feeling?’

I blink. My mouth tastes like steel.

‘I am Mia,’ she says.

‘Where am I?’

‘Don’t worry, you’re fine now,’ she assures me. ‘I’m going to help you, but first you need to tell me what happened.’

‘What?’

‘I saw you lying on the tracks. Thank god I got you out in time, or a train might have run you over or something.’

No, no, no, no.

A slow, rhythmic thumping begins on both sides of my head, and I rub my temples. My eyes begin to burn. It’s a struggle to keep them open now.

‘No one comes to that side,’ I manage. I had done a careful recce of the location over two nights. Not a soul wandered by that area. What kind of joke were the gods playing on me?

‘I do. Every Thursday night. There’s a cemetery nearby,’ she replies. Her hand moves down to shift the gear up a notch. She has nice hands – long, slender fingers. She points behind her. There is an empty bottle of vodka in the backseat. ‘It’s the best place to have a drink. All quiet and calm, with no one to disturb you as you enjoy a quiet evening with your mother.’

‘Your mother?’

‘She is buried there.’

My throat clenches.

‘I mean, she doesn’t literally drink with me,’ she clarifies. ‘I just take one glass for her and place it on her grave while I drink mine. It’s our version of a girls’ night out, if you know what I mean.’

What the fuck is going on? It’s like someone switched to the wrong channel or something. I was supposed to be travelling through a space-time continuum now, not in a car with a hangover and a potential ghostbuster. Beside me, my unwanted saviour is prattling on.

‘Dad’s from Kerala, originally. But my nanu was from here, so my mom and I used to live here with him whenever Dad had an outstation assignment. Then, after his retirement, Dad shifted here too. So I’m more of a Mumbaikar, really.’

I wonder why she is giving me her biodata even though I never asked for it. Then, just as abruptly, she switches the topic back to where we started.

‘So why were you lying on the tracks? I thought you had been attacked, but you were lying with your arm behind your head, as if taking a nap. So I assumed you had fainted or something.’

‘Yeah,’ I reply absently, looking out the window at the empty streets bathed in moonlight. The night had seemed so perfect a while ago.

We are passing through a market now. Santa Cruz, maybe. Most of the shops have closed for the night, which means it’s quite late. A spell of dizziness takes over me. I look away hurriedly and close my eyes, breathing deeply. Now I can feel a strange roiling in my stomach too, as if the digestive juices are being churned with a spoon. I clamp my lips shut, trying hard to control the rising nausea. My forehead breaks into a cold sweat. It’s no use – I’m going to be sick.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks in a concerned voice.

‘Pull over,’ I croak urgently. ‘Now!’

She screeches the car to a halt. I open the door and tumble on to the pavement, and not a moment too soon.

A wave of bile rises up my throat before I puke my guts out on to the concrete. The coppery aftertaste of medicine violates my tastebuds, making me vomit even more. I feel a vein throbbing in the middle of my forehead. My eyes water. My throat clenches and unclenches like a suction pipe on auto-mode.

Breathe, I say to myself, just as the concrete rises up to meet my face. Everything goes black.

15841.png

When I open my eyes next, I am back inside the car. Now it feels like my brain is trying to burst out of my skull. I slowly turn my head sideways to see that my chauffeur is the same, though I am not sure whether I should be relieved or worried about that. She looks at me with a tinge of concern.

‘You look pretty sick,’ she says. ‘Just wait a couple of minutes. There’s a nice hospital right around—’

Panic washes over me.

‘No, no,’ I croak. ‘No hospital. Please.’

The urgency in my voice catches her attention. She glances at me again with that same uncertain look before turning her eyes back on the road.

‘Okay, no hospital,’ she says.

A moment passes, then two. Silence has never sounded sweeter. I wish it would go on forever, but life’s never been that generous.

‘You weren’t really trying to … kill yourself or anything, right?’ she asks tentatively.

I am too tired to lie, so I just stare out the window.

‘I had a friend once who was suicidal,’ she says.

I sigh in resignation. This one’s not going to give up.

‘She drank an entire refill bottle of mosquito repellent,’ she continues. ‘Miraculously, nothing happened to her, and she woke up the next morning just fine. But now, no mosquitoes bite her any more. Seriously.’

She grins and looks at me. The expression on my face makes her smile fade.

‘I guess it’s funnier when you’re not suicidal yourself,’ she concedes.

‘Please, just drop me off here,’ I beg her.

‘There’s no auto in sight.’

‘I’ll take a bus.’

‘It’s too late to take a bus.’

‘I’ll take a train.’

‘You don’t have a wallet. I checked your pockets.’

‘Seriously, what is wrong with you?’ I cry out in exasperation. ‘You don’t even know me. For all you know, I could be some psycho-killer waiting to slash your neck the first chance I get!’

‘You don’t have a blade either,’ she replies calmly, ‘and I’m a jujitsu brown belt.’

I give up and sink into my seat, every ounce of energy drained from my mind and body. Maybe this is God’s idea of justice. He wants to show me hell without giving me the pleasure of death.

‘Just take me home,’ I groan.

‘All right,’ she says, taking a u-turn.

Suddenly, I recall that I haven’t told her my address.

‘I noted down your address and contact number from the ID badge in your pocket,’ she says, as if reading my mind.

Perfect.

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Mercifully, she doesn’t talk much for the remainder of the journey, and after what seems like forever, we reach my house. Should I thank her? But for what? Gifting me back a life I never wanted in the first place?

‘You don’t need to thank me,’ she says, as the doors unlock.

I nod at her once and open the door, grateful that the ordeal has ended. However, I have barely shuffled an inch when, without warning, her arms fly around my neck, wrapping me in a tight, strangulating embrace. My nose is smothered in the tickly tendrils of her citrus-smelling hair.

‘Life is good,’ she says softly.

I am too dazed and disoriented to react, so I nervously stay immobile, waiting for this weirdo to release me. She doesn’t. I try to disentangle myself, but her grip is stronger than I thought.

‘Say it,’ she says.

‘Say what?’

‘Life is good.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it.’

I say, ‘Life is good.’

‘Say it like you mean it.’

‘Life is good, okay? Life is great! Now please let me go.’

I hear her sigh once before she releases me.

‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow morning, around ten,’ she says, just as I am getting out.

I freeze. ‘Why?’

‘Just to check if you’re still alive. And don’t take this the wrong way, but if you don’t pick up, I’ll assume you’re dead and call this Kishore guy you listed as an emergency contact on your ID badge.’

‘For what?’

‘To tell him that you killed yourself because you were in love with him and he never reciprocated your feelings.’

This knocks the breath out of my lungs.‘W–what?’ I shout.

‘Yeah.’

‘Wh–are you crazy? That’s my brother-in-law. And he is a police inspector!’ I yell.

Mia shakes her head in mock disappointment. ‘Imagine the trauma your sister will go through.’

‘That’s not true,’ I cry out. ‘I’m not gay – and definitely not for my jeeju.’

‘I know, but you won’t be alive to defend yourself. So for the rest of the world, you will die a lover of the lover of your sister. Imagine what the headlines will say.’

‘I – you—’ I sputter. ‘You can’t do that!’ I exclaim finally.

‘Oh, but I can,’ she says coolly. ‘And the only way you can stop me is by staying alive tomorrow.’

Her face is apologetic, but her tone is dead serious. Fine, I think to myself, if this is what she wants to play. I muster up all the testosterone left within me and remind myself that I am the one with balls here.

‘Do what you want,’ I say. ‘I don’t care. I’ll be dead. What difference will it make to me anyway?’

‘What about your family? Care about them?’ she asks.

Said balls shrink.

My first jeeju is a senior police inspector in the Kandivali area. He is up for promotion soon, if Kanchan di’s words are to be believed. The last thing he wants on his record is a suicidal brother-in-law with an unrequited crush on him. And my sisters … oh god, my sisters. They will probably attend my funeral just so they can spit on my body. That is not how I want to go.

‘So what, you’re blackmailing me into staying alive?’

She shrugs. ‘If that’s what it takes, why not? At the end of the day, it’s the karma that matters.’

‘What karma? You’re forcing me to live,’ I cry.

‘That’s what you think tonight, but who knows? Tomorrow, you may or may not get a new perspective. Your only chance of finding out is by staying alive till then.’

Saying so, she sweetly smiles and waves goodbye. As she whirrs her engine to life, I blurt out stupidly, ‘And what if I kill myself tomorrow afternoon, or in the evening?’

She kills the engine and pauses with a thoughtful expression. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Uh oh. ‘No, I just meant, hypothetically speaking,’ I try to backtrack, but she is already shaking her head.

‘No, no, you have a point. So here’s what we will do.’

‘We are not doing anything. I’m not—’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow morning at ten. But that’s not all. We will repeat this routine for the next twenty-one days, I read somewhere that that’s how long it takes for a person to form a habit. So once you get into the groove of waking up every morning, you won’t need me any more.’

‘What am I, a chimp?’

‘Trust me, you will thank me later.’

She whirrs up her engine, drowning out my protest. In one smooth move, she reverses her car and zooms away.

‘I doubt that,’ I scream out in vain as her car turns the corner and disappears. Somewhere far away, a dog starts howling.

A cold shudder runs down my spine as I stand rooted in the spot for some time – seconds, minutes, hours, I have no idea – while my zonked-out brain tries to process what just happened. Slowly, I become aware of my surroundings. My flat is a few blocks away from here. I can see its windows on the third floor – dark, like every other apartment in the building. The road around me is empty, dimly lit by a dozen street lights. The night is cold, silent and lifeless – just how I wanted to be a little while ago. I envy it.

Auto-mobility kicks in, and my feet start carrying me to my apartment. As if in a dream, I only catch glimpses of the journey in between, until I am finally at my front door. I take out the key and open it. A strong whiff of weed, beer and vomit hits me, and I cough. The stench clears my head to quite an extent, bringing me back into the real world. Kapil lies sprawled unconscious on the living room sofa, a bong dangling from his right hand, empty beer cans strewn about on the floor. A puddle of what I am guessing was once pizza. I take out the post-it pad lying near the intercom, scribble down, ‘You’re cleaning this,’ on a note, and then paste it on his forehead, taking care not to step on any of the junk.

Once I am back inside my room, I pause, trying to formulate my next plan of action. This takes surprisingly long, mostly because the same options keep revolving around my head – sleep, eat something, kill self, cry in loo, listen to music, drink water, check mail, brush teeth – until they all merge into each other, making no sense in the end. I finally decide to screw it all and plop down on the bed. My mobile buzzes beside my pillow. A message.

‘Ten a.m. Tomoro. Dnt forget. Hugs. Mia. 15883.png  ’

A sob escapes my lips. The text letters blur before my eyes until I bury my head in my pillow and cry my heart out.

This is all an illusion, I chant to myself. You are dead. This is a test. Tomorrow morning, you will wake up to find yourself hovering above your unrecognizable corpse on the tracks.

But when I look up, I see the smiley still there, smirking back at me from the screen.

‘Who are you?’ I ask it. ‘What are you?’

‘I’m your worst fucking nightmare,’ the smiley replies in Mia’s voice. ‘Cry all you want, you little sissy. Tomorrow morning, shit gets real.’

And that is the last thing I remember as darkness closes in, bringing a much awaited end to the night’s misery.

2

My face looks like an omelette gone wrong.

Parts of my anatomy which should have been flat are puffed up, and parts which should have had some shape have flattened down. I look like a government-sponsored warning against substance abuse. I curse the pharmaceutical companies for not printing the side-effects in bold on the packaging. Who would want to look this hideous after an overdose?

I splash some more water on my face and look in the mirror again. As the water dribbles down my cheeks, I vaguely remember a time in my childhood when all it took to soothe my temper was a simple splash of cold water on the face. Now, you could ram my face through an entire Arctic glacier, and all it would evoke is a sigh.

Outside, Kapil is hammering on the bathroom door.

‘C’mon dude, I’m not kidding. My bladder’s reached bursting point.’

I grab a towel, fish out my outdated suicide note from the medicine cabinet before he sees it, and open the door. Kapil freezes, staring at my face.

‘Ew,’ he says.

‘Good morning.’

‘What happened?’

‘Food allergy.’

‘Really? Again?’ he asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘But if you know you’re allergic, why did you eat it?’ he asks, a hint of suspicion in his voice.

‘It was different this time. Never tried lobster before.’

His brows furrow. ‘And you didn’t know you were allergic when you ate it, right?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘But I’ve seen you eat a seafood platter before.’

‘Kapil, I didn’t try to kill myself,’ I say irritably. ‘I told you. I’m over that.’

Kapil throws his hands up. ‘Fine, man.’

I give way, and he saunters past me into the loo, shutting the door behind him.

A moment later, a long moan of pure ecstasy echoes from the toilet, followed by the sprinkling sound of water on water. As usual, his bathroom song is some leisurely number from the eighties about rain, spring and love, occasionally accentuated by a small fart in between.

Listening to his carefree humming, I transpose my spirit on to Kapil and wonder if life would be better that way. Every morning, I would wake up with a calm coke-, hash- or weed-induced buzz, go to the loo, eat whatever I find in the fridge, play on my X-box for the major part of the day, answer the mandatory call from home with the standard I’m-still-trying-to-find-my-direction-in-life reply, call one of my fellow junkies about the evening’s agenda, go out, get high, and come back home with a new spiritual revelation that’s going to change the world forever, if only I remember it the next morning, which I never will. Life would still be meaningless, no doubt. But I would no longer care, taking each day as it comes.

Maybe that’s how life is meant to be. Maybe that’s why people love the idea of a routine so much. It might get tedious after a while, but at least it gives you something to look forward to the next morning.

I walk into the living room. The puke and garbage have been cleaned out, but the air is still heavy with the lingering stench of alcohol and sweat. I crack open the windows, thanking my stars I was able to convince Kapil to sleep in the living room when he first moved in. Even though it’s the early hours of morning, the sound of traffic is almost deafening, thanks to the weird acoustics of the house. But I don’t mind the noise at all. In fact, that was one of the main reasons I chose this place. It’s the silence I can’t stand.

A flush, and Kapil opens the door. ‘My pee was a shade darker this morning,’ he says to no one in particular. After letting out a massive yawn, he scratches his crotch and walks towards the kitchen. Suddenly, he pauses. ‘I wanted to tell you something,’ he says, his bleary eyes squinting in concentration.

I wait.

Kapil frowns. ‘It just slipped my mind. Damn! It was one of those brilliant revelation thingies.’

‘You were in there for ten seconds,’ I say.

‘That’s the thing with genius, man,’ he moans, ‘it comes and goes in a flash. I told you we should have something to write on inside that loo.’

‘And