Five-Thirty AM - XLII

December had already set in well.

Piya-Jiya had gone back to Canada to start their new lives, but Mr. and Mrs Puri would be returning later, so as to avoid a good portion of the bitterly cold Canadian winter. Unfortunately, all four of the newly weds had jobs to go back to, and new lives to settle down to. They didn’t have any left-over vacation days!

Noel was done with his shooting and with Christmas around the corner, he’d planned on taking a few weeks off, first for the vacations and then just for himself and Mitul, before starting work on the post-production part of the film.

Noel’s relationship with Mitul had finally become public knowledge. For a while it had done the gossip circuits, until the next big juicy gossip came up, after which it faded from public memory. Thankfully, Mitul did not get as much footage, nor was her name made public, simply because both she and Noel avoided places where people would recognize him. Besides, Noel and Dev steadfastly refused to reveal her name to the press. His fans were initially disappointed, but then rallied around them both, as a love story is something all hormone-crazed teenage girls drool over, even if it’s that of a person whom they only saw in two-dimensions and larger than life on the screen.

The whole family, including Dev and Myna, as well as the Puris, would be traveling down for New Year’s to Goa. What better place to ring in new beginnings than in Goa surrounded by family and loved ones?

But there was still time for that.

Right now, Mitul waited tensely as Joyce finished her phone call and finally put the receiver down. It had been two weeks since she’d completed the draft and given it to Joyce and Dev. Noel had received his copy from Dev. They would be arriving any moment now.

‘You were right,’ Joyce leant back in the chair, twirling her pen idly. ‘Your instincts were on the mark. That’s a great story and you’ve told it well.’

Mitul let out the breath she’d been holding.

‘Of course,’ Joyce continued, ‘we’ll have to go over it book, chapter and verse, but on the whole, your approach has been excellent.’

‘Thanks, Joyce,’ Mitul answered.

Joyce smiled at her, before moving in for the hard question. ‘So why do I feel some parts have been edited out?’

Mitul looked at her askance. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘That Gauri Krishnan bit. How he got the first role. There’s rumors in the industry about her. Not a single one of her leading men has ever opened up about it. Yet her casting couch is a fairly open secret. But you make no mention of it in Noel’s story. How come?’

Mitul stilled for a minute and then gave her the same argument that she’d given Dev. ‘It made little sense to bring it in explicitly. There is no proof. Nothing that says she slept with anyone, including Noel. If I were to talk about it, I would be opening myself, you, the publishing house, Noel, and everybody else associated with it, to a whole lot of lawsuits and bad publicity. The book doesn’t need the story to stand on it’s own. So I used my editorial discretion and left it out,’ she said unemotionally.

Joyce thought that over for a minute, leaning back in her chair, her eyes on the pen that she was playing with. She lifted her eyes to Mitul. ‘Okay. I agree with you. It doesn’t add anything extra to the story, other than unnecessary spice. It stays out. The implications are there, but not it’s not explicit. I can work with that.’

There was a knock on the door, and Dev and Noel walked into the room on Joyce’s ‘Come in!’

For the next hour, they discussed the book. Mitul had divided it into four parts.

The first part talked about his formative years until he joined the army. This she called ‘Beginnings’. The next three parts she named after his filmography finding the names almost symbolic of the journey that Noel had gone through in his life.

The second part covered his life in the army, until he was wounded and retired. She called this ‘Ek Din Zindagi Ka’ (A Day in the Life).

The third part focused on his addiction to pain killers, his almost overdose and the final struggle to go clean. There was no better name for it than ‘Woh Meelon ki Doori ... Woh Lamba Raasta’, (The Long and Winding Road) to depict the long road he had traveled at that point.

Finally, there was his entry into the world of TV and films. In an ironic nod to Gauri and the infamous casting couch, she called it ‘Mohabbat ki Batein’ (Words of Love).

‘What about ‘Sirf Mohabbat Hai?’ (It’s Only Love)’ asked Noel.

‘That’s still ongoing,’ she replied looking straight at him. He smiled. The unspoken message clearly sent and received.

Joyce looked thoughtfully from one to the other and hid a smile.

Noel and Dev said that they liked the way the book had taken shape, echoing Joyce’s words. Mitul had a whole file of photos she wanted to add to the book, as illustrations. They picked out about thirty snaps that would accompany the story, starting from Noel’s childhood to his days on the sets of ‘Sirf Mohabbat Hai,’ which included some that she had taken.

Joyce and Dev agreed that the book needed to be released just around the same time that the movie released, ensuring maximum publicity for the movie and the book. Mitul and Noel stayed out of that discussion, knowing that those two were the pros at handling things like this. This was their realm and they were more than happy to leave it to them.

The only thing left to design was the cover and that could wait until they had a name for the book and it was ready to go to press. They bandied about with catchy titles, until Noel said, ‘Five Thirty AM.’

They all looked at him. Mitul felt the rising warmth in her ears and cheeks. Dev and Joyce looked puzzled.

‘Why Five Thirty AM?’ they both asked.

‘Because the best things in my life happened at five thirty a.m.’ he replied, looking at their puzzled faces. ‘It’s like a new day,’ he ended lamely.

Finally the meeting was over, and the three of them had just left Joyce’s office when she called Mitul back in.

‘Close the door,’ she indicated.

Mitul shut the door and stood there wondering what Joyce wanted.

‘How long have you been sleeping with him?’ she asked with no preamble.

Mitul was shocked! ‘What?!’

‘Oh, come on, darling,’ Joyce waved a hand. ‘Anyone can see how you two act around each other. It’s a dead giveaway. Besides, ‘Sirf Mohabbat Hai’ is still ongoing?’ she said mockingly.

Mitul just swallowed and could find nothing to reply to that.

‘Besides,’ continued Joyce, ‘I want an exclusive on the wedding. You owe me that.’

‘But..,’ Mitul spluttered. ‘We haven’t even talked about it yet,’ her voice sounded strangled.

Joyce laughed at her. ‘You will, don’t worry. The man’s in love. And don’t forget to say ‘Yes’, ‘cause a guy like that is for keeps.’

Mitul grinned and nodded at her, biting her lower lip.

‘Now run along. Don’t keep him waiting,’ she shooed Mitul away. ‘And don’t forget the exclusive,’ she called.

*****

Noel and Mitul had spent Christmas with Noel’s family, at Maria’s invitation.

Mitul experienced her first candle-light service on Christmas Eve. The service, the message, the reverence of the worshippers, struck her as being so different from the temples she went to. She’d asked Maria what would be appropriate to wear and Maria suggested that she wear a sari or a salwar with a dupatta.

It was only when they entered the church, that she’d noticed that all the women had covered their heads, and so she used her dupatta as a scarf to cover her head, too. Maria had smiled at that. Smart girl!

In the week between Christmas and New Years, they’d flown down to Munnar in Kerala. Mitul had never been there and this was the perfect time of the year to visit the hot Southern state. Munnar was the closest to the Eravikulam National Park, and they’d wanted to do a few day trips into the jungles.

They arrived at a resort and checked into their little cabin. The view was spectacular from their ‘garden’. The tall mountains of the Western Ghats were covered in dense foliage, a deep green sea that rolled in troughs and crests like ocean waves, with the Aramundi Hills standing tallest among them.

The resort laid out conveyance and guides to take them through the National Park and Noel booked them for a trip the next day.

The afternoon sun was already on its western track when they entered the park. They traversed through the high meadows in the hills catching glimpses of the famed Nilgiri deer, that is found only in this part of the country. Mitul couldn’t resist taking a few shots of them.

Soon they were into the dense foliage that they had seen from their cabin. The road was a dirt track at best, and the 4x4 was the only vehicle that could actually traverse through that terrain. They stopped for a moment, taking in the silence around them, only broken by the chirping of the birds high above them, in the branches of the trees around. The forest floor was covered with shrubbery that would make going through it very difficult for them.

As they drove along slowly, there was a sudden change in the air. Low clouds formed mists that drifted by wispily through the trees. The birds had stopped singing. There was an electricity in the air. Almost like something was about to happen.

Mitul reached out for Noel’s hand, gripping it tightly. She could feel that something was going to happen. The driver was frowning as well. Noel felt her tension, and gripped her fingers, hard. His thumb drew soothing patterns on her palm, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling. A look at his tensed jaw and she realized he was feeling it too.

And then they saw it.

A big cat. It looked like a leopard. But it didn’t have the rosettes, that usually covered a leopard’s skin. And it was grey, the color almost non-existent as it stood wrapped in the cobwebby fog that hung over them. It stood about three hundred yards away, coming out of the jungle to their right. It only stopped for a moment to look at them, but both Noel and Mitul could feel time slow down as they looked at it. Mitul raised her camera to click a picture, when with one majestic leap it vanished into the foliage.

‘What was it?’ Noel asked in a hushed voice. The idea of a big cat roaming around them, was unnerving to say the least. Besides Mitul was with him. Should anything happen to her, he’d never forgive himself.

‘Pogayen,’ the driver replied.

‘What’s that?’ Noel asked.

‘The people of this area talk about a grey cat that lives in these Hills. Few have seen it. Most don’t believe it exists. But they say if you see it, you are blessed with a long and happy life. It’s a good luck symbol.’

Noel and Mitul stared at each other. This couldn’t be happening again!

‘If you ask my opinion,’ the driver continued, ‘it’s probably an albino leopard with no colouring in its skin, making the patches so light, that we can’t distinguish them from a distance.’

Noel nodded, but took out his phone and asked, ‘what did you call it?’

‘Pogayen,’ the driver spelt it out for him.

He typed it in. He’d look it up when he got back to the hotel. ‘Did you get a picture?’ he asked Mitul.

She checked the display. All it had was a blurred shape leaping in front of the trees. It could have been anything. The fog hadn’t helped and the exposure was low.

‘I could try to clean it up, and bring it into focus,’ she said doubtfully.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t think it will work, though.’ She nodded in agreement.

Just then, they came out into the sunlight to another of the rolling meadows. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the grass a brilliant green. The grey shadow of the pogayen was lost in the mists that they left behind them.

*****

They spent the evening having an early dinner. As the stars became brighter in the sky, and the moon rose over the hills, they lit a fire in the fire pit in the garden and brought out cushions and blankets to lie on in front of it.

Noel had brought out his iPad and they took pictures with it to send back to their parents. Then he went online, first looking for pictures of albino leopards.

‘It didn’t look like a leopard,’ Mitul said. ‘Look at those ears, I distinctly remember rounded ears,’ she said.

Noel nodded. ‘Even the tail is not right,’ he said, frowning at the pictures. ‘And it wasn’t white. It was grey.’

‘Definitely grey,’ she agreed.

He typed in ‘Pogayen’ on the search bar and what Google threw up took them by surprise.

It was listed as a cryptid - same as the Sasquatch and Chupacabra!

Noel laughed and said, ‘unbelievable. Do you think anyone would believe us, if we said cryptids followed us around?’

She collapsed on his chest, joining in the laugh. ‘No. But I think we set some kind of record with this.’

He looked at her laughing against him, and leaning down took her lips in a long kiss.

‘Enough of cryptids,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘I've better things to do with my time.’

‘Oh really?’ she asked, smiling at him. ‘Like what?’

He got up pulling her up with him. ‘Come on inside, I’ll show you,’ he said. Arms around each other they walked back inside.

Deep in the Aramundi hills, a pair of glowing eyes took in the tiny spark of light that was a fire pit. It knew better than to go there. That way lay peril. It would stay here, high up in a tree, hidden from the eyes of those who searched for it.

******