85 years have passed since the tempestuous romance between Duke and PIku made them leave their motherland.
India in 2025 is unrecognizable.
Everything is different with sweeping social changes that began with the country's independence. But what h...
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Chapter 18
Of Friends and Their Troubles
While Avi and Patty were floating in their cloud of blissfulness....................................
Patty's best friend were having a very hard time indeed .
Meet finally discovered the whereabouts of his missing boyfriend . He was in police custody for getting into an ugly, drunken brawl with some local drunks , somewhere in a hole in the wall tavern in Free school Street . He was completely nonchalant when they came to bail him out . He sauntered out sporting a huge ugly swelling over his brow .
As if without a care in the world , he looked at his mother's careworn face and said ,
'What are you doing here ? You didn't need to come . I was just fine . '
Salma , Tareef's mom , turned to Meet and said , ' Do you see what I have to deal with each and every day ? Please , can you tell me what's wrong with your friend ? I'm at my wits end . He doesn't want to work , he doesn't want to study , he's on his phone all the time and every night he comes home dead drunk . What does he want from me ? I have just my teacher's salary . Once I retire I'll be solely dependent on my pension . I can't take on his responsibility then . He needs to be able to stand on his own two feet before that . I'm dying of anxiety here and it makes no difference to him .' She started to cry , shoving her face into her hands .
'Please calm down aunty . Let me talk to him . ' Meet said as he patted her bony shoulder .
'Why are you two behaving as if you can't see me ? I'm right here . Ammi stop your drama . It's boring . ' Tareef said in his langorious voice sounding as if he's dying of ennui .
Meet called a cab and somehow managed to push the crying mother and the belligerent son inside . He had no idea where Tareef lived . Tareef gave the address . It was a locality in the farthest , westernmost edge of the city . The area surprised Meet greatly . It did not match Tareef's appearance at all .
The fancy sophisticated Tareef , it turned out , lived in a tiny ground floor apartment, in a small segregated portion of a house . The house was in a bad state of disrepair . The bricks were exposed , there were green algae all over the walls . There were open drains everywhere . Fish bones , thrown out casually by the next doors' were being pecked at by some crows . There was exposed garbage piled up in a corner , a couple of mangy dogs prowled around the stinking lot .
The interior was dingy and depressing .The whole place smelled damp and moldy , as if no sunlight has ever touched the interiors of this sad place .
Tareef's awful temper didn't surprise Meet any more . No one living in this squalor could feel happy . He felt a wave of deep sympathy for Tareef . But the brat wouldn't even look at him . He went straight into his bedroom and locked himself in . His mother stood outside his door and pleaded with him to come out and eat something . She got no response .
