Cognitive Dissonance

This is a work of fiction. All characters indulging in sexual activities in this story are well above the age of consent. All sexual activities are consensual.

******************************

Meeting

******

"Agni?"

I froze. A thousand thoughts passed through my head all at once. I recognised that voice. I was hearing it after eight long years, yet I knew it was hers. "Maybe it is not," I wondered, "please, let it be her," I fervently wished as I started to turn around.

"Agni, is that you?"

I turned around, hoping I could just gather her in my arms. She stood there, her hand resting on the shopping cart, and there was this whole length of the cart separating us. She had not changed one bit since I last saw her. The same beautiful eyes, those exquisitely sculpted lips, a complexion that was so creamy and smooth and of course that lovely hair that would hang down straight in random strands yet curl into a spiral for those last three inches.

I sidestepped the cart and hugged her. Even as I did, I realised this was the first time I was hugging her. I was 18, when I left home for my higher studies, and at that time, when we said goodby, all we had exchanged was a chaste handshake.

"What are you doing here?"

"I stay at the base Ma'm, I work there."

"And I live just outside the base, maybe a kilometre from your south gate. Where are your parents now?"

"Dad is posted at Belgium Ma'm, mom is with him, sister is in the US, she is married now."

"Why are we still standing here and talking? Come home with me, we have lots to catch up on."

Then with a "Hold on a minute," she rushed to the adjacent aisle in the store and returned with two packs of 'Pav,' the bread roll that forms part of many Indian dishes, mostly street food.

"I will make your favourite 'Misal Pav' for you, gosh Agni, it has been so long."

We billed our stuff.

"I have my scooter, how have you come?"

"I have my scooter too, Ma'm."

"Right, just follow me, it will take less than 10 minutes to get home."

We parked the vehicles in her driveway. Her car was in her garage. "I find it easier to use the scooter for short trips and errands," she said.

I followed her in, carrying her grocery to the kitchen. She started putting things away in their right places as I went about handing the stuff to her one by one.

"When will Sir be home? I am dying to meet him."

She winced. "Don't you know? Sir will never return now."

"What do you mean Ma'm? Where is he?"

"One year after you left and after your parents were transferred out, he died in a road accident. It was instantaneous."

"No!"

Her eyes glistened. "Soon after, I sold our property there and moved into this city, I couldn't stay there anymore. One of my close friends had bought a bungalow in this gated community, and a few more were available for sale. So I bought this one. She stays just a couple of houses away."

My voice was choking up, she held me to her till I regained some control of my emotions. Then she said,

"You will feel better once you start eating my Misal Pav."

Eating

*****

I picked at my food, "I am so happy to meet you again, why do I also have to feel so sad?"

"I have grieved enough Agni, I am only happy that you are here now. Tell me, what has happened in your life these last eight years, what are you doing now? Why are you at the air force base?"

"Almost immediately after I left to study aeronautical engineering, the family moved to Delhi. I think that is when all contact with you was lost, for I never came back to our home city.

Dad was training the junior batches of the Indian Foreign Services officers. One day five of them in one of his classes were invited home for lunch. Four fell in love with my mom's cooking, the fifth fell in love with my sister. I do not know when they exchanged phone numbers that day, but for the next one week they were seeing each other every evening after his classes got over. The day before he was to leave on his posting, she said she wanted to marry him and that she had invited him home for dinner.

Dad of course knew everything about the guy, he approved. His parents were contacted, and he rode off with her into the sunset, which is the West called America. They are very happy together."

"What happened to you?"

"I was your student Ma'm, you made sure that not only were my fundamentals in math very strong, you taught me how to score well in exams. The perfect scores I had in both my board exams were only because of you. I topped my class at the graduate level and went for my masters to Germany. One of my professors was working on a research assignment with Tyrofighter and part of it came to me as a project for my master's thesis. It turned out well, we managed to publish a paper, and Tyrofighter recruited me. My expertise is in integrating weapon systems with the aircraft and testing them. I and a couple of other engineers are posted here to carry out this integration in the new squadrons that the country has started acquiring."

"No pretty lady to fly away with as yet?"

"No, Ma'm, but I think I am going to make time for that from now."

"You will find many in this city, you may be spoilt for choices," she laughed.

"Can I have your phone for a moment?" I asked her.

She handed her phone over to me....

"I have plugged in my number, and have taken yours. I hope you will talk to me often."

"Not just on the phone, we must meet often."

"Yes, Ma'm, I have missed you for eight long years, We have a lot to catch up with."

"I missed you too Agni, you were my best student. I now take a few online classes and have a math video channel. It fetches me a decent income".

"You are a very good math teacher Ma'm, you are the best".

"Agni, do you remember my name? Do you even know my name?"

"Yes, Ma'm, I do."

"Say it, speak out my name". She looked straight into my eyes.

"Neeraja, it means 'Lotus', it also means 'one who has emerged from water'. What made you think I would have forgotten your name?"

"Can you address me by my name from now on? Can we be friends? You are not my student anymore. Can we both be on an equal footing and put this teacher-student relationship behind us?"

"Yes, Neeraja," and I held out my hand.

She stood up, held my hand, pulled me up and hugged me. "We are friends, not acquaintances or business associates that we need to shake hands."

"I must leave now," I said.

"Must you? Why? Stay for dinner, then leave."

"Are you sure? I don't want to intrude on your time."

"I used to make lots of different snacks for my favourite student many moons ago. Today, I will fix a terrific dinner for my new found friend."

"But you must let me help you with the cooking."

"But of course Agni, I cannot see you sitting alone talking to yourself whilst I am in the kitchen."

Ruminating

*********

We sat in the living room, remembering the days gone by.

"You were an amazing student," she said, "I often wondered why you needed to come to me for those extra classes, but then I was glad I could get you to focus better and most importantly, get you to submit much neater pieces of work. You were too casual, too impatient, too impulsive and took a lot of shortcuts."

"You used to rap me on the knuckles with your pencil whenever my work was shoddy, remember?"

"Yes," and she took my hand and held it to her cheeks. "I hope this makes it better," and she gently stroked the back of my hand. "You were always so keen to master the subject, your dedication astounded me. Math is not a subject that people easily love."

"No, Neeraja, my wonderful math teacher, it had nothing to do with math, mastering math was the corollary, it happened as a consequence to the main theorem which you completely missed."

"Really? So which was this main theorem?"

"It was never about math Neeraja, it was always about you. It was always 'I can't let Ma'm down', or 'I cannot make Ma'm unhappy by not scoring full marks', or 'I want her to smile at me when I get this problem right', or 'ma'm will be disappointed...' The theorem was to always win your praises, to hear that musical 'that was very well done, Agni' that you used to utter every time that I did something perfectly. The near perfection in math just had to come about as a logical consequence."

She stared at me for a long while. "You are telling me this now? Why didn't you tell me this as soon as you passed out? You could have told me this the day you took leave of me when you went off to college?"

"I just couldn't put anything into words that day, I was trying not to cry, I had that weird feeling I may never see you again. I am so glad you found me and I am even more glad to be your friend."

She ran her fingers through my hair. "Why do you cut your hair so short?"

"The flight helmet feels more comfortable whenever I have to go on a sortie".

"Why do you do that? You are not a pilot, right?"

"We have these two seater fighter aircrafts where we test stuff. I sometimes need to carry out onboard tests when the pilot does the flying. That reminds me, I need to put another number on your phone. It is the board number. Most of the time I will be in the operations area, where we do not carry our phones. If you find my phone unreachable and there is something important to convey, you can leave a message at this number. I can then call you when I am free. If it is very urgent, they may be able to patch me on the nearest phone or radio."

"Go ahead, but this sounds complicated. Why don't you just call me every evening at a fixed time, or text me when you get back from work?"

"I may also work shifts, but I will keep you updated. And my off days are Wednesdays, so that is the day we can hang out together."

"I see. I did wonder why you were not at work today. Good, I will keep myself free and exclusively for you on Wednesdays, you can spend your time here or we can go out somewhere. Now come, help me get the dinner ready."

The dinner was delicious. I thanked her for the food and the company and I hugged her tightly to me for a long time when it was time to leave.

"I missed you so much Neeraja, there was never a day when I did not think of you in all these years."

"Go now Agni, or you will make me cry."

Dating

*****

We texted each other every evening without fail. On some days, when I got off from work early, we talked. Somehow, the talk would veer towards math.

"Do you know there is a new way to solve quadratic equations?"

"Of course I do Agni, this is the method devised by the Chinese professor Dr Po-Shen Loh that you are referring to, right?"

"Do you know you can use the Abel series to arrive at the solution to Ramanujan's infinite series?"

"Yes, I do, you start with the Grandi series, move to Abel and finally Ramanujan."

"Is there anything you don't know Neeraja?"

"For starters, I don't seem to know how to get you to stop talking about math and start talking about a whole lot of other things I could be interested in."

"Tell me something you are interested in."

"You!"

"Okay, Let me take you out for a movie this Wednesday."

"Which one Agni?"

"What do you prefer? Hindi or English?"

"English."

"Well, we have two options, an old 1981 movie called 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' and a recent one called 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'. Which one will it be?"

"To which one do you want to take me?"

"The French Lieutenant's Woman."

"Why"?

"Because I am taking my very beautiful friend and not my math teacher out for a movie."

"Is someone flirting with me?" She was laughing.

"Last row, corner seats, afternoon show when the halls are practically empty, those are the seats and the show I am booking. Does that answer your question?" I was laughing too.

"The naughty boy has grown into a naughty man. Get yourself here for a brunch. Then we will watch Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. After that I will fix you a dinner at home before you return to your station."

"Thank you my friend, can't wait for Wednesday."

"Hey, don't forget the intervening days Agni, you still need to talk to me every day."

On Wednesday afternoon we drove down to the mall in her car.

"You drive beautifully," she said, "your sense of anticipation of the traffic movement is extremely keen, and you drive safe. You maintain that distance from the car ahead of you, which most of us don't."

"I have an international driver's license. I can drive on both sides of the road. Whether it is Europe, UK or India, I am comfortable driving in any country. I don't like too much traffic, love the autobahns and freeways."

"You love the speed, don't you?"

"Yes, Neeraja, but I don't take risks, I really am a cautious driver, more so in India, where anyone can come in from anywhere and land up in front of your car. I really get spooked here, but since I first learnt to drive here, I can be very patient. Out here, we abhor gaps. The moment there is a large gap between you and the car ahead, the guy behind you will honk or will try to overtake you, invariably from the wrong side and get into that gap."

We were laughing the rest of the way to the movie hall.

The multiplex where we were to watch the movie was on the third floor. As we entered the mall, I realised I had chosen the wrong day and time. There was an India-Pakistan cricket match on, and in these two countries, cricket is the primary religion and such matches can make the spectators, including those watching on TV very emotional, crazy and sometimes even violent. The ground floor of the mall had multiple giant screens showing the match which seemed to be in a rather critically poised stage. There was a sea of humanity all over and getting inside was going to be tough. The escalators from the ground to the first floor had been shut down and people were standing on the escalator steps. The only advantage that I could see was that everyone's attention was rapt on the TV screens.

I held Neerja tight with my right hand, holding her left side closely to my right. Luckily her handbag was slung over her left shoulder so now it was trapped between us, so she could not possibly lose it in the crowd. Then using my left shoulder, elbow and arm to clear a way for us and repeating a polite 'excuse us' over and over again, I started working my way first through the edge of the crowd and as I neared the area that lead to the staircase, through the dense sea of humanity.

Finally after what seemed like ages but was maybe about ten minutes, we reached the corridor leading to the stairs. There was no crowd there as the stairs did not have a line of sight to the TV screens. Without releasing my tight hold on her, we literally raced up the stairs to the first floor.

Luckily the escalators there were working. I did not let go of her when we negotiated multiple escalators and finally we were just outside the entrance to the multiplex. It was only then that I looked at her.

"Are you okay?"

"I am okay, you can keep holding me tight though we left the crowd behind three floors down," she said with a huge grin.

"I am sorry Neeraja, that I had to pull you through this, I totally forgot about the cricket match and that there could be this surging swarm out here."

"In hindsight, was this a safe thing to do?"

"No, it wasn't, Neeraja, but before you go hammer and tongs at me, can you check if all your stuff like your bag, your watch, phone and wallet are still with you?"

"You will have to let go of me first." I dropped my arm.

"Yup, everything okay, what about you?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Now tell me, why did you do this crazy impulsive thing?"

"Something got to me Neeraja, this was the first time ever I was taking you out and I wasn't going to let even hell stop me from reaching the movie hall. And this was just a match crazy crowd."

"I hate these crowds, I always have this fear of being groped. It happens in many crowded places be it a bus or a movie hall or an exhibition...."

"I was acutely aware of this, why do you think I held you the way I did? Did something untoward happen?"

She hugged me. "You really are my knight in shining armour aren't you?" Then she added, "I need to use the restroom"

I escorted her to the end of the corridor where it branches off to the men's and ladies rooms, and I said to her, "Wait for me here once you come out, don't go wandering anywhere."

Anyway, I got out of the men's room first and was waiting for her when she finally appeared.

"Let's go and sit in the theatre, it is just about ten minutes till the movie begins." She possessively took my arm and lead me there.

The hall was much cooler than the outside world as I ushered her to our seats. She looked at the last row corner seats and she gave me this weird look.

"I am not an officer my lady, but believe me I am a thorough gentleman, have no fear."

"I thought you were joking, when you talked about booking these seats."

"Actually I was, but while booking online, when the seat layout appeared on the computer screen and these two seats were available, I just couldn't resist," I said with a sheepish grin.

"Always impulsive, my Agni, always impulsive...." She said, shaking her head.

We settled in, the commercials started running followed by the trailers, and slowly the lights dimmed out. She planted a wet kiss on my cheek.

I looked at her. "Been waiting for the lights to go out, that was for being so protective out there," and she linked her arm to mine and put her head on my shoulder.

All I remembered was that every time Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep kissed, our hands would tighten their grip on each other, or maybe it was just my hand that tightened on hers.

The movie of course was lovely, and she beside me, looked lovelier.

"So, did you like the movie?" I asked her as we stepped out of the multiplex.

"Yes, I liked the movie, I liked the seats but I like that gentleman sitting beside me and holding my hand the most."

"Are you hungry Neeraja? Do you want to eat something?"

"It is nearing 6 in the evening. Share a sandwich and a milk shake with me. Then I will fix you some dinner at home and you can get back to your base. I know you start work early."

She made me some tasty lasagna for dinner. Then it was time to leave. I hugged her. "Thank you Neeraja, for a lovely day, I know I messed up a bit in the afternoon, but I hope you still had a good time."

She nodded as she clung to me. When I tried to disengage, she fiercely held me back. "Just a little while longer," she said, "I like it when you hold me like this."

Then much as we didn't want to, we had to detach ourselves. "Call me to tell me that you have reached home safely. Take care my friend, ride carefully."

When I reached home, there was a message waiting for me. I read it and then called Neeraja.

"I reached, there is a message for me here. We have a party at the base on Saturday. I can bring a guest along. Will you come with me? You can meet some of my buddies and Group Captain Malhotra. He is the chief test pilot and I work closely with him."

"I would love to go with you Agni, but I have never been to such defence forces parties before."

"I will be with you. The guys here are quite cool. You just have to be yourself. The dress code for ladies would be either a light silk saree or a gown. The men will either be in uniform, or in a tie or in all whites. Dinner normally is served late, say around 9, so we can have a snack before starting in case you feel you won't be able to stay hungry till then.

There will be cocktails, the wine is pretty good, but you can stay away from liquor if you so wish. I do not have more than two glasses of beer or two glasses of wine. I don't get drunk, and the guys are always pretty well behaved. There will be very few singles, everyone else will be there with a spouse or a friend. This is the first time I will be going with someone if you say 'yes'. I really want your company."