X2 - Making sense of her

It may seem like an unlikely title, a rude one considering the sensitive, emotional climate we live in. It’s an unlikely title, because everything leading to this point made good sense and it had good vibes all around. A good, smart girl who knew what she wanted, a loving family and a sign of approval from mine. This felt so right.

X2 and I continued our conversations over the web, and on the phone. This arrangement had to work for now, because she couldn’t just resign from her job in Bangalore immediately. She had things to wrap up. The first step of the plan was to put down her papers in a month or so, because she had enough of this company, and her heart was back in Mumbai. She wanted to get back in touch with her family and spend quality time with them. That, and it would also be good for us to be in the same city, as we prepared for the wedding and our life together. I was glad too. I would be in a relationship, without the fear of judgment, harassment and more.

That first step of the plan would be delayed. It would turn into a second plan that meant waiting three months more, before which it turned into an entirely new plan that involved waiting 8 to 9 months. It was necessary she said, so she could cash in on an 1-lac rupee bonus. This was for her loyalty shown towards the company for the past 5 years. I thought that wasn’t a lot of money, not enough for that long wait. I felt it was a bit irresponsible and selfish. I mean, she was asking me and our families to wait for a cash benefit, after which she planned on resigning. It felt like that was more important to her. Naive as I was, and guilty of not being nearly as accommodating towards my first ex, I decided I had be supportive and understanding. I agreed to wait. My mother didn’t quite like the idea but she didn’t seem too disturbed either. Perhaps, she was content in seeing me behave normally at home, and livign like a normal being, with a calm mood.

My mood would soon see its swings, and ups and downs. At first, I thought it was my immaturity acting up again. I’d end up making several trips to Bangalore over the months, nearly once a month and she’d come to Bombay once every 2 months or so. While I was around her in Bangalore, things seemed stable as always. We’d go for movies, dinner, do the groceries and live like a married couple. While in Bombay, she’d stay the weekend at our place. Things were very jolly, very calm and in control.

The only bits of randomness could be felt, when I would arrive in Bangalore, sometimes at 2 in the morning after a day at work, followed by a late-night flight. I could hear things falling, furniture being pushed, dishes being thrown around, all to make me dinner and to clean up her place. It would be quite visibly filthy, a layer of dust lining every surface. It almost felt like she’d been ignoring it, cleaning up just in time for me.

X2 lived alone, although she was meant to be living with her room-mate who was also a colleague from work. In truth, her room-mate, the daughter, a localite came from a big-shot business family. Someone like her would be married off to another business family from the area, but she seemed to have survived that fate. Instead, she lived with her north-Indian, Punjabi boyfriend. To her parents however, she was sharing her place with X2 to avoid the long trip home from work. These two room-mates were a weird bunch.

X2 would complain about her, then sometimes cling on to her so she would do her work for her. She’d ask her to help with freelancing work, something I didn’t think was needed. X2 would call the room-mate stubborn, lazy, dumb and difficult to work with. There seemed to be some sort of inferiority complex between them. I met her room-mate only once and she was there with her boyfriend at a restaurant. She was young, tiny, while her boyfriend was a tall, crude and loud. They behaved like a married couple but there was something very odd about their chemistry. It seemed fake, or maybe I didn’t quite get.

A lot later, I heard from X2 about the guy telling his parents about his girlfriend. The parents flew down to Bangalore. That event sounded so weird, even for me, someone with a far-than-normal life. His parents sat down at a table with their son. Their possible daughter-in-law was instructed to be seated at a distance, on a different seat. Then they spent a while looking at her from a distance, she was invited her over. The guy had asked her to wear heels so she’d appear taller than she was. There was a minimal, awkward conversation and that was the evening. I didn’t hear much about them after that, and when I checked last, nearly 4 years later, it didn’t appear like things had progressed beyond that. That was the room-mate and I had nothing to do with her. Their lives, their choices. I do not understand a lot of people.

Their work culture was something else. X2 boasted about how little she had to really work. She’d boast about being able to relax for two to three weeks on end, then work the last two days and getting the job. A designer by profession, she got her big break after intering at the world’s largest IT company, then securing her first, full-time job with the place she’d been working with. This too was an MNC, with upper management based in the US, and local reporting managers. She even boasted about how easy it is to fool people about her design qualifications and university.

I’d seen her work a few times and I found her ways unethical. With absolutely no exposure to mobile interfaces and operating systems, she spent all her time only on the one software project she worked on. She would take screengrab interfaces of other competing products, mix and mash them together and submit it as her own. With equally lazy managers she reported to, they’d get away with murder, and of course take home shockingly large salaries. But, that was never enough.

As someone I thought who shared the similar lifestyle and upbringing, I figured there would a feeling of content having made it, but that wasn’t to be seen. Occasional arguments between us would break out on silly things. She complained about how someone from a lesser known design college got hired into the team, reporting to the same manager as her. It was obvious, he was younger, but he was also smarter and had his hands in all fields of design, from videos, to mobile devices, gaming consoles to web sites, and desktop software. He even had a portfolio web site, quirky, scans, ideology, all detailed neatly. I looked up his profile while I was writing this piece. Now five years at that company, the same experience now as X2 had, he now heads a product, leading a team based out of Silicon Valley. It’s funny how things work out.

Despite all the jealousy, there was something that let her overcome it - free stuff. It could be free food, freebies at work, free trips, free drinks and she’d go bonkers. She would abuse her colleague, but go over to his place when he invited her for dinner. It’s an odd feeling knowing you hate someone’s guts but will happily entertain an invite for free food. This behavior wasn’t limited to food, it happened at the workplace too. Airport taxi rides were lied about. She would take the bus to the airport, and charge the company 10 times as much for a taxi ride. When the Accounts team asked for the proof one time, she snapped back at the woman demanding she stop asking questions and do her job. I only heard of it when I asked her about her foul mood. During a townhall session, a lot of people also asked why this one person was being given all the international trips.

X2 wasn’t the only one upto trouble. Her youngest sibling, her sister was a bit of a rebel, and an opportunist. X2 would describe her, and feared she was up to no good. Then 20, she used to hang around with a good guy friend from her college in Pune. The guy, a hero-type could be seen in many of her photos on Facebook. The interesting bit was that he was known to be a thief of sorts. He was arrested recently, by the local Pune police after he was caught red handed stealing 5 laptops from his hostel. This had happened before and this time, the hostel authorities had caught him. X2’s sister didn’t seem bothered by this discovery, but hanging around with the popular kids was a thing. Every interaction between X2’s sister and me seemed like it was from behind a cloak. Eye-contact was minimal again, a trait seen strongly in their father. Mumbling and being vague about everything was another.

My only suggestion to X2 was that she mentor and speak to her sister, offer some guidance so she avoids troublesome company. Oddly enough, she and her parents didn’t seem phased by any of it. I could understand X2’ mother wasn’t in the state of mind to control her children, but the father didn’t seem least interested. It’s only in the presence of others that he would act like he knew what his children were up to. In reality, he was clueless and possibly, consciously. It was evident from his tone and his shoddy attempts at trying to explain what they did.

Once, I remember X2 calling me to tell me, her sister was returning from Pune but she wanted to watch a football match at a nearby stadium. I remember inviting her over, and she arrived one late Friday afternoon with suitcases and more. I figured she’d stay the night so I asked my folks to make her dinner. She came over, cash-less and I remember dropping her into a bus to the stadium. I handed her Rs. 500 or a bit more. The match should’ve ended by 10PM and I remember calling her and she wouldn’t answer. Me and my parents waited till 11 for her to arrive, to have dinner.

I called X2 hoping she would know. She didn’t. X2’s sister wouldn’t come that night, and the following two nights. She arrived on Monday afternoon to take her luggage before heading to her folks. Turns out she and her friends and taken off, out of town, on a picnic the night of the match and I do not know what she did with Rs. 500 in her pocket, and no fresh clothes. Not X2, neither her parents seemed to care. My mother was baffled by all of this. I felt X2’s sister could’ve informed us she wasn’t coming back that night, at the very least. She likely told her own parents she was at our place.

Another time, X2 and I were talking about her sister, and I happened to slip and say, ‘I think you’re sister might be getting drunk and experimenting with drugs’. At first, X2 denied it then, then proceeded to laughing about it. She said her sister was too young to be doing these kind of things and she was ’not that kind of person’. The next day she told me, she’d spoken with her sister and it turned out it was true. She’d been ‘doing’ drugs for a long time and smoking, and getting drunk. Then X2 innocently went on trying to get it out of me, in a rather scary, creepy kind of way. ‘How did you know?’, ‘Tell me, tell me, how did you know?’, ‘Who told you? How did you know?’. She seemed less bothered about her sister’s behavior, more concerned about me knowing about them.