Studio M.

इश्क़ बुलावा
जाने कब आवे
इश्क़ बुलावा
आवे जब आवे
मैं ता कूल तेरे रहना
मैं ता कूल तेरे रहना
मैं ता बैठा कूल तेरे

तेनु तकड़ा रवां
बातों पे तेरी हसदा रवां
पागल में खुडणु बनंदा रवां
तू हसदी रवे मैं हासंदा रवां
तेनु तकड़ा रवा

~ Kumaar
~~ Ishq Bulavaa, Hasee Toh Phasee

The night was planned and unplanned. Tara and her friends were planning a chilly crab night at Red House on Robertson Quay. And Arjun was visiting Singapore for work and was dining at Robertson Quay with a couple of folks from office. The plan was to go then cross over to Clarke Quay and party on. It was going to be a long night. It was a Thursday and everyone was celebrating the almost-weekend atmosphere. Singapore was a different city on weekdays and a completely different city on weekends. And the weekend started on Thursday nights. Or Wednesday evenings actually, with ladies night at many bars and pubs. The usual haunts were Club Street, right next to the IT companies and the banks, or Roberston Quay and Clarke Quay.  Clarke Quay was becoming more and more touristy and most city folks avoided it. Unless they had people visiting them, then a night out at Clarke Quay was like an item on the list that needed to be checked off for every tourist.

After three huge crabs (Chilly, Pepper and Butter) and loads of extremely fattening but extremely yummy fried buns, Tara and her friends, sat on a large round table in Red House polishing off the remains of the sauce from the three crabs. Tara loved seafood. Actually she loved prawns and crabs. When she was young she would go shopping with her mom to Russel market in Bangalore on Sundays. Her mom would be riding the Kinetic Honda, she will be sitting on the back seat and her younger brother would be standing/sitting in front. It was a sight, the three of them on that bike, with three different sized helmets. Tara holding the large cloth shopping/grocery bag. When they got to russel market, they would head straight to their seafood shop and the shopkeeper would rush to greet them telling their mother about the fresh catch. He would sometimes keep crabs and prawns aside for them whenever the catch was good and he didn't want mother to be disappointed. Tara and her brother, Tarun, would stand next to the plastic box and watch loads of crabs, of varied sizes, with their claws tied, trying to climb over each other. They would intently stare at their eyes and the clicking noises that they made and sometimes the shopkeeper, Ahmed, would tease Tarun by holding a crab and bringing it too close for Tarun's comfort, who would then go hide behind Tara or their mother. Tara would just be thinking about the night's dinner. And when her mother made her signature coconut crab curry, she would literally spend an hour eating and at the end of that hour, her plate will be covered with shells and Tara would have this huge satiated grin on her face, like she could die now and go to heaven. Her parents' friends still teased her about how they learnt how to eat crabs from her, how she diligently maneuvered to get the most meat out of the claws and the body.

She was lost in this thought, leaning back on her chair, when someone came and closed her eyes and asked her to guess who he was. She tried to search her mind for who this could possibly be, but was blank. She would have tried to feel his hands or arms to guess, but her hands were full of crab gravy. So she said she didn't know and Arjun opened her eyes and said "Tara! in two years you've forgotten me!" She screamed when she saw who it was and in spite of crab stained hands, jumped up to hug him, but was careful to hold her hands away from him. And then asked him to give her a minute while she washed her hands in the restroom. When she got back, Arjun was sitting on the table talking to her friends. She gave him a proper hug and asked how he was here and the usual meeting-after-a-long time talk. They paid the cheque at Red House and rose to leave. Some folks from the group were going back home, but the two boys that Arjun was talking to, wanted to go out, so they asked Arjun if he would be interested he said yes and asked Tara to come along. Tara was in two minds, she really wanted to go back home and sleep and she wasn't the partying kinds anyway. After a good crab meal, all she wanted to go was take a good shower and crash. But Arjun pulled her along, so she pushed her tiredness away and joined the boys.

Arjun and Tara had worked together for a short time in Bangalore for The Hindu. They weren't really friends. They were in two different groups but they knew each other of course and met at the same parties often. But it's weird how you suddenly feel connected to a person when you meet them after a long time, even though you didn't really know them that well. It is especially true when you are loving abroad and you see someone from India and immediately there's this connect! That's exactly how Tara felt right now. Like she had Arjun all along and he was a close friend and hanging out with him will be fun and will make her feel like she is home for a bit.

The 4 of them crossed over to Clarke Quay and decided to sit at this Bavarian place called Paulaner. The boys were in the mood for beer. Tara wasn't a beer drinker but surely, Paulaner would have regular drinks/cocktails as well. Well they didn't. They had beer inspired cocktails instead, so she decided to try those out instead. The boys were being adventurous and asked for flavored beers. With a basket of oven fresh pretzles and their drinks, conversation flowed and they talked about everything. Arjun and Rajiv discovered that they went to the same school in Bangalore, and they started with their school stories, the teachers, the crazy things that had happened. It was something everyone on the table could relate to. Tara and Peter chipped in with their own stories and they all laughed at some incidents that were narrated until they had tears in their eyes. Arjun had gone ahead and ordered a Mango Beer, which wasn't too good, well it was really bad actually, when Tara took a sip, she nearly puked. So then he started ordering beer based cocktails with her, there was a 1+1 offer running on the cocktails. Peter and Rajiv went back to regular bottled beers. After 10 cocktails each Arjun and Tara, were sufficiently equipped to party all night. And with 8 beers each, Rajiv and Peter were sure to join them.

They closed the tab at Paulaner and walked over to the bar next to it called Highlander. It was 1:00 AM and Clarke Quay was buzzing or maybe it was their heads! At Highlander a few more beers for the boys and mojitos for Tara, some crazy selfies and extremely embarrassing dancing later, the waiter walked up to them and said the bar would close soon and asked for last orders. They all ordered their last round and Rajiv and Peter went out for a smoke. The band at Highlander announced that they were playing their last song and played Bruno Mar's 'Just the way you are' and Arjun pulled Tara close and danced with her. It was for about 5-6 minutes, not more than 10 for sure, but Arjun felt like they were holding each other and dancing for an hour. The waiter came back with the drinks and the cheque, they both took our their wallets and paid and the boys came back from their smoke. Last round of cheers and more dancing and then it was time to leave. They were all quite drunk, but not the can-not-walk-home type drunk, so they decided to party more and at Arjun's hotel, Studio M, right next to Robertson Quay. They started walking towards the hotel when Rajiv said he was going to go home and didn't stay in spite of the group literally puling him. As he walked to the taxi stand, Peter, Arjun and Tara walked on towards Studio M.

The weather was beautiful. It was almost November in Singapore and the nights were quite pleasant and breezy. Peter started singing Tamil songs and Arjun and him started dancing on the streets. Tara pulled them both together and pushed them to keep walking. And then Peter and Tara started singing hindi songs and Arjun had to ask them to be quiet and walk. In between the three of them started laughing and stood on the same spot and laughed for what seemed like hours and then began walking again. A 500m  distance took them 45 mins to cover, well you can't really expect anything better in their state. Arjun was trying to figure out how he could get these extra two people up to his room past the reception at 3 AM in the morning. So he said some nonsense and asked Peter and Tara to act like a couple and made them hold hands and walk without swaying, with heads held high and no giggling. The both of them had a tough time trying to follow all those three points, but they managed to act civilized and walk past the reception to the elevators to the rooms.

As soon as they entered the elevators and the doors shut, Tara and Peter left each others hands and started giggling again. Arjun looked at them like a school headmaster almost shaking his head. When they entered the room, the plan was to call for more drinks from the hotel and continue the night. But Peter plonked himself on the couch and was soon snoring. Arjun and Tara looked at him and laughed and their repeated efforts to shake him awake were met with disappointments, he only snored more.

Tara said she should go home then, but Arjun stopped her and they both sat and talked for a while and listened to music on Arjun's laptop. They spoke about how weird it was that they met like this after 2 years and are bonding in a new city. They spoke and spoke and spoke. And one point Tara caught herself thinking why she hadn't spent more time with Arjun in Bangalore. He seemed nice, so how did they not hang out then? She was looking at home all the while she was thinking this, while he was searching for something to show her on Google. When he caught her staring at him, he asked if everything was ok, she averted her eyes and shook her head as if to rid herself of those thoughts and said yes, all was fine. When it was finally around 5AM, Tara decided to go sleep, she had to wake up about 2 hours, go back home and get ready for work. As much as it felt like Friday night, it was a Thursday and she still had work the next morning.

Studio M had a duplex room structure and Arjun and Peter decided to sleep downstairs on the couch-cum-bed and Tara made her way upstairs to crash on an actual bed. The privileges of being a girl. She carried her bottle of water and her phone, two things that she felt insecure without and drifted into semi-deep sleep. She could never sleep well in an unknown/new place and her mind was always half alert. The alcohol of course helped calm the mind down to a more relaxed state. She woke up after 40 mins screaming because of something she dreamt off. Arjun rushed upstairs to check on her and found her shivering. He first ran down to turn up the AC temperature and then came back up to check on her, tucked her in properly, and sat next to her as she slowly went back to sleep. Peter still snored.

At one point in the night, Tara opened her eyes to check the time on her phone and felt for her phone under her pillow, grabbed it and tried bringing it to life, but it had died on her. She cursed it and put it back and turned to the other side and found Arjun leaning against the bedrest, half sitting, half lying down, deep in sleep. She shook him a little and he grumbled something and slid down to lay down fully, hugged her and mumbled something in his sleep. Tara would have gotten up, but she too was sleepy and still hungover, and she moved closer to him and rested her head under his chin, and closed her eyes.

He woke up the next morning and looked her sleeping in his embrace. He kept looking at her and held her tighter as she stirred in her sleep. Then slowly let go and went down to check on Peter and the time. Peter was no longer on the couch, and it was 11 AM in the morning. Inside the hotel room, it felt like 4 in the night, the heavy curtains blocked even the tiniest ray of light and it didn't feel like daytime at all. He went back up and tried waking up Tara. She turned to the other side, pulling the blanket closer to her. And he smiled to himself and went back into the blanket and hugged her close.

When she finally woke up it was 2 PM. It was the hunger churning her stomach that finally woke her up. Arjun said, 'good morning'  and she replied and smiled, and asked what time it was. He said 2 PM and she said, 'What rubbish'. He ran downstairs and pulled the curtains open and came back up and stared at her. She sat up and realised he was right and that she had missed work, she held her head in her hands and laughed. He pulled her closer, held her head in his hands and kissed her deeply. After overcoming the initial shock, she responded to his kiss, with a deeper kiss. As they lay on the bed all spent later, she rolled over and placed her head on his chest. He played with her hair and they talked for what seemed like the end of time. They would have continued, if it wasn't for work and hunger. He went down to take a shower and called out from inside the shower saying  he had to go to office. She lay on the bed and scowled, she thoguht they would spend the day together, why did he want to go to office? It was 4:30 and what's the point of going to work now, that too on a Friady. She replied with an "ok". And he said, "actually i just need a place with strong WiFi, the internet in the hotel sucks and I have an urgent task to do" She said "ok". He wondered why she had not offered to go to her place ? Surely her house had WiFi. When he walked out, he saw her all dressed up and ready to leave. He asked where she was going. She said she was going home since he was going to work and that she would take a shower at home. He asked her to wait for a minute while he dressed up so that they could leave together. She sat down and watched him dress. He felt her eyes on him and walked over to her and kissed her. She kissed him back and then he said let's go.

As they walked onto the streets, she asked him if he was sure he wanted to go to office, and he said he just needed a strong internet connection. Neither of them got the other's hints. He stopped a cab for Tara, hugged her and then she got in, he said he would call her. And the cab sped away, she turned to look back and found him looking at her too. The cab stopped at a red light not far away and they continued holding each other's gaze. And suddenly he started running towards the cab, she smiled and started to cry.

अजीब रंगों दी तू हैं बड़ी
लगे अलग ही जहाँ  दी
अजीब रंगों दी तू हैं बड़ी
लगे अलग ही जहाँ  दी

ऐ तोह नज़रां नज़रां
दी गल  वे
तू वी सुन ले ज़रा
मैं ता कूल तेरे रहना
मैं ता कूल तेरे रहना
मैं ता बैठा कूल तेरे

तेनु तकड़ा रवां
नैना विच तेरे मैं बसदी रवां
पागल में खुडणु बनंदा रवां
तू हसदी रवे मैं हासंदा रवां
तेनु तकड़ा रवां