They did kiss for a while on the carpet but the fire inside Mayank had grown cold. Why did she have to be nasty about the one thing in the world that meant something to him. Cold heartless bitch. Didn’t she realize that nothing else mattered . . . his parents, his life, his future—it was all bollocks, really. Of all the things in the world she had to find his CD player offensive. That poor, old, cute thing he had carried all the way from New Delhi in his hand luggage.

‘You don’t find me attractive?’ asked Swati plaintively.

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Mayank, ‘just tired.’

‘Well, I’m tired too,’ said Swati pushing him away, looking for her clothes. ‘Listen,’ she said in a voice that concealed no hard feelings, ‘if you don’t mind can I crash here? I don’t really care about the CD player if I’m sleeping. I’ll walk back in the morning. It’s just that I’m too tired to trudge back at this hour. Besides, you don’t look in any shape to walk me back,’ she concluded laughingly.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Mayank said listlessly, ‘of course, you can stay for as long as you want. Let me make some space on the bed so you can sleep more comfortably.’

Mayank sat watching telly till late. He was careful not to turn the volume up too high. Swati had turned her back to him and the telly, and gone to sleep. As far as Mayank could tell she seemed comfortable, oblivious of her surroundings. He had finished the bottle of wine and was now drinking a can of Holsten Pilsner that he had found in the shared fridge in the kitchen outside. The Holsten did not belong to him. Was it a crime to consume a beer that belonged to somebody else? Mayank sipped on the beer and thought hard. He was going to replace it tomorrow first thing. That is if he managed to get up at all. He was aware that tomorrow-first-thing might very well not arrive before tomorrow evening.

He knew it was late because they were showing Naked Elvis on Channel 4. The show began with a man dressed up as Elvis. As the show progressed, Elvis gradually lost all his Elvisness apart from his shades and stick-on sideburns. The last segment featured him butt naked, grinding his hips, his limp manhood dangling precariously between his thighs.

As soon as the show finished, Mayank felt sick. He needed to throw up immediately. The reasons for his feeling nauseous were not clear. Was it the sight of the male organ, swinging like an emergency chain in an Indian railway compartment? Or was it just that he had had too much to drink?