Madhuri Banerjee - My Clingy Girlfriend

My Clingy Girlfriend

My Clingy Girlfriend

Madhuri Banerjee

westland ltd

61 Silverline, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095

93, 1st floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002

First published in India by westland ltd 2015

Copyright Madhuri Banerjee 2015

First e-book edition: 2015

All rights reserved

ISBN: 973-93-84030-89-6

Typeset in Californian FB by SRYA, New Delhi

The author asserts her moral right to be identified as the
Author of this work.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

For Bala: Thank you for encouraging me to go beyond my comfort zone. Without your love, support and inputs, this book would
not have been possible.

For my brothers: Ani, Taju Dada, Bujum Dada, Bubam, Babush, Chotu, Jadu. And my dad Dhrubo, who is my hero. And to Gopal Uncle who always keeps me in splits.

Cheers to the Bengali roots!

For Ariaana My sweetest treasure. My proudest accomplishment. I wish the best for you always and pray you will become a wonderful lady.

I can honestly say that I, Obrokranti Banerjee, know jack shit about love. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Yet I am in a relationship. It is actually the most intense relationship I have ever been in after my mother who finally let me go out into the world alone at the age of twenty-five. But then you cant blame my mother. All Bengali moms think their sons are Jesus Christ and they themselves are the Virgin Mary.

The thing is that most Bengali men dont know a thing about women. I am no different. When I finally started working in Mumbai and met this beautiful woman, I immediately proposed using the only pick-up line I knew: Is there an airport nearby, or is that just my heart taking off? She laughed so much that we became friends in an instant. When I proposed a few hours later, asking if she wanted to be my girlfriend, she immediately said yes. I should have known something was fishy right then. We were both four drinks down at a kids birthday party and neither of us knew what we were getting into.

But here I am two years later with the same girl and things are great. Just great. Yup. Great.

Who am I kidding? Theyre not great. My girlfriend is a psycho. She is the clingiest girlfriend in the world. Space and time as a concept do not exist for her. She wants to be with me all the time. She stalks me. She hounds me. She wants my world to revolve around her. Shes utterly and completely mad. Yet I cannot let go of her. Why? Because Im bloody scared.

Two reasons. One I might never have a girlfriend again, and a robust, young Bengali man like me needs to show off to his peers that he can have any woman he wants. Even though, deep down, I know it was a fluke. Second, because I need to beat that idiot cousin of mine Shubir, who has so many women flocking to him all because he looks like a bhadrolok at the pujo pandals every October. I mean, I did try, but somehow my dhoti kept flying up, making a caricature out of me. So I decided to stick to wearing jeans and a kurta at the pandals , and the Bengali women have never looked at me after that. I mean no self-respecting Bengali wears jeans. At pujo.

Therefore, I am stuck with one woman as compared to Shubir who has a harem of them.

My clingy girlfriend does love me though. She cooks for me. She cares for me. She asks me where I am and what I do on a regular basis. Almost fifty to sixty times a day. And she always accompanies me to all events official, personal, even boys night out. A boys night out should mean a man can get away from his female partner to go out drinking with his guy friends. But she insists on coming along, saying she hasnt met them for a long time either. Ideally, the two should never mix. Keep the woman in your life separate from your male friends. Theres a disaster waiting to happen right there.

Recently my friends have been too busy to have a boys night. Ive called them a couple of times, and could hear some loud rock music and laughter in the background when one of them said they were working. I wonder if they were lying?

I have thought about leaving my girlfriend. But then I might never have sex again. I mean with a real girl. There are only so many Sunny Leone videos I can download. My hard drive is on the verge of collapsing. And she really is good in bed. My girlfriend I mean, not Sunny. Sunny, I know I will have one day, as soon as I have the courage to use my pick-up lines on her. But sometimes I have to stop myself from screaming out Sunnys name in bed and quickly use my super-brain to change it to my girlfriends, Radha, and it comes out as a hiss like Sss radha and she always gets mad if Im thinking of someone else. This is when I say, No baby, I was moaning in pleasure and then said your name. Hehe. She buys it.

Some things my super-brain cant quite figure out though. Every time I get back from the bathroom, I see my phones display glowing. Sometimes, I could have sworn I had certain messages from my female colleagues in my inbox, but theyre gone when I check later. Sometimes my mother says she called but I didnt pick up. And its not even in my missed call list. Ma thinks Im making excuses, but honestly, I would never ignore my mother. I worship her. Shes always been the first woman in my life and will remain so. I think Radha is a little jealous of that fact. She wants to be the first, second and last woman ever for me. God, how I feel caged!

I make sure I never miss a call from Radha, though. Because if I do, shell land up in my office. Baby, I thought youd died. I was so concerned, she said one day when I was in a meeting. My colleagues didnt let me live it down for the entire week. So I always pick up Radhas call. No matter what Im doing. I still have the liberty to ignore my mothers. Sometimes.

I know Radha is possessive. But then who is not in this world? Every relationship is fucked up. Shubir, my cousin, who is also known as Lengtu, was in a relationship where his girlfriend almost forced him to get married. It was then that he came up with a brilliant plan. The kundli . Now, whenever he wants to break up with a girl, he tells her, Darling, I would happily spend the rest of my life with you, but my punditji says our kundlis dont match. And I can never go against our punditji. Its just bad karma for both of us. Indian girls understand: nothing matches the power of a matched kundli . Even though half a dozen of them end up divorced later. But then, thats not the parents problem. At least they matched the kundli . Goddamn Lengtu has fooled about twenty women like this. The rest were mutual separations. Even the girl couldnt stand his chauvinistic ways after a few days.

I once tried the kundli story with Radha. She said she would match it with her punditji and came back with the result that we were a faultless twenty on twenty. Perfect match. Why am I not surprised.

Dont get me wrong. I am somewhat happy to have Radha in my life. Although, sometimes I wish she were more independent. She is a housewife, you see. Even though we arent married yet. She says shes preparing for the role. She sits in my house the whole day long and orders the maid around. And if the maid isnt cleaning properly, she calls me in office so I can also scream at her. This is also what she does with plumbers, carpenters, drivers, electricians, internet-walas, newspaper boys, the milkman, vegetable vendors, car cleaners, and the tailor. She will immediately call and say, Baby! The tailor is saying he cant deliver my blouse by tomorrow. Tell him to do it! And then hand him the phone. And I will then lower my voice, since I am invariably in the middle of an office meeting, and speak to her tailor about a blouse that she needs for God knows what reason by tomorrow. But thats my job. To make her life easier. Otherwise shell make my life hell.