How do I fit into this story, asks `friend'

How do I fit into this story, asks `friend'
SREELATHA MENON

NEW DELHI, JAN 12: Narender, the man who has been accused of causing the rift between Suhaib Illyasi and Anju, sat in a Fiat outside the mortuary of All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Tuesday. ``I am still trying to figure out how I fit into this story,'' he said.

He is tense and afraid; the turn of events has taken him by surprise. ``I came to know of the death of Suhaib's wife at 5 pm yesterday through a report in a Hindi eveninger,'' he says. ``What are they talking about me? That she died because of me? I cannot say anything about her action as I hardly knew her,'' he says. ``I have met her just once for five minutes and all we did was wish each other,'' he says. ``I have never visited them either at their home in Patparganj or Mayur Vihar,'' he adds.

He wants to know of the rumours on him and is worried sick. ``I am sure one-fourth of the world must be knowing about me by now,'' he says. ``What will I say to these scores of TV cameras and reporters? That I am sorry about the death? Or maybe I will refuse to speak,'' he says.

Narender, who runs a gift shop in Karol Bagh, brushes away a report that said Anju was angry about her husband entering into a business partnership with Narender. ``If Suhaib had such a plan, he never told me about it,'' he says.

People also are talking about a homosexual affair, he adds. Did someone say that to you, he asks. ``It is not true. We were just friends,'' he says. ``We had met a year-and-a-half ago at the American Embassy while both of us were standing in a queue for some visa formalities. I recognised him as being a TV personality and we got acquainted.''

``It was the relationship of a star and a fan,'' explains his brother Tarun, adding, ``He has told me that.''

Narender says they talked about Suhaib's work on the crime series, about investigations in various stories figuring in the programme. ``And he would ask me about the new material and products I had ordered for my shop in Karol Bagh,'' he says. As for common interests, he says there were none. ``Nothing at all,'' his brother Tarun butts in angrily. ``It was just a waste of time and now unnecessarily, his name is being dragged into something that has happened in Suhaib's house,'' says Tarun.

Narender says his daughter who is seven years old had acted in one of the episodes of India's Most Wanted. ``During that period Suhaib visited my home four or five times. Apart from that, we hardly met.'' ``If she was jealous of our friendship she would have said so to me. She could have called me up. But there was never any interaction with Anju,'' he said.

Asked what his wife thought of his friendship with Suhaib, his brother butts in again and says it was a waste of time and hence everyone considered it unnecessary. ``I, as a practical person, cannot approve of such `fan-type' friendships,'' he says. Narender only smiles quietly, still leaning heavily onto his seat for support.