One Indian Girl by Chetan Bhagat

‘Brooklyn Heights, please.’
The taxi took the FDR, crossed Brooklyn Bridge and entered Brooklyn. It took me forty
minutes to reach Debu’s building. He had moved back to his apartment with his old roommates. The
elevator of his building had shut down for temporary repairs so I climbed up the five floors to reach
his apartment. I was about to ring the bell but paused. I wanted to give him a complete surprise. I had
come with news of a resignation, a bouquet of roses and a ring. I wanted him. I was ready to be his
girl, just the way he wanted me to be. I lifted the potted plant outside his flat. I found the bunch of
house keys under it.
I opened the door. It was dark in the living room. I switched on the lights. I wondered if
anyone was home. Two bedrooms had their doors ajar. These belonged to Debu’s roommates.
I walked up to the third bedroom—his. I could hear music. Yep, Debu was inside. I knocked
twice. I don’t think he heard it. Had he gone to sleep while listening to music? I checked the house
keys. I tried them one by one on the bedroom door with my right hand since I held the bouquet and the
blue Tiffany box in my left. One of the keys worked. I gently opened the door. I just wanted to slip
into bed with him. A tiny bedside lamp was switched on. It took me a second to process what I saw:
Debu and a white girl lay there naked, intertwined with one another. I couldn’t breathe. In hindsight I
realize I should have shut the door and dashed out. Instead, I froze.
‘What the fuck.. .’ Debu said as he saw me.
‘I.. .I.. .sorry.. .sorry.. .’
‘Oh fuck,’ the American girl said as she saw me. She had a large tattoo of a bird on her left
upper breast. She also had a pierced upper lip. I don’t know why I stood there and noticed all this and
did not just run out.
‘Radhika?’ Debu said.
I started to shiver.
‘You know her?’ the girl said.
‘Huh?’ Debu said as he visibly wondered what to tell her. ‘Used to. What are you doing here,
Radhika?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. My face was on fire with embarrassment. What the hell was I doing here
anyway? With a bouquet and Tiffany box in my hand?
Then, in a second, I was gone. I turned around and ran out of his house. I don’t know if he
came after me. I don’t think he did. Not that I looked back. I simply ran and ran, down the stairs and
on the empty streets. I wanted to disappear into thin air. In the middle of the road I prayed for a cab,
but none came.
‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, Radhika,’ I mumbled, rocking myself. I had to keep it together
until I reached home. Or at least until I found a taxi. My hands trembled, my knees wobbled.
‘Don’t, Radhika,’ I said out loud even as I let go. My legs felt weak. I kneeled down on the
road and cried. I didn’t just cry, I howled. A couple of people from the ground-floor apartments
peeped out from their windows to look at me. I didn’t care. Where did I go wrong? I looked at the
sky. I am sorry, God, but what wrong did I do?
The image of Debu with the tattooed white girl wouldn’t vacate my head.
An NYPD police car came up on the road and stopped near me.
‘You all right, lady?’ a cop spoke to me from inside the car.
I looked up at him and nodded.
‘You live here?’
‘No. Tribeca.’