“Can you get home by yourself?” she asks “I have some grocery shopping to do and won’t be driving by Lalbagh”
“Would you be needing any help with the groceries? I can …” I offer to help.
“Oh no no” she smiles “I can manage, I’m concerned whether you can get home … You know …this rain’
“Not a problem. I should be used to rough stuff by now” its hard to hide one’s disappointment.
“Hmmmm” she manages to keep up with the smile. It’s pretty thin now, the smile.
For the longest possible time we spend time in colleges and schools learning how stuff works. All that ‘baap-ki-khoon-pasine-ki-kamaai’ spent generously to add abbreviated suffixes to our visiting cards. All that effort, struggle, cut-throat-competition and for what? We never learn how to deal with situations. We never learn to handle awkward silences, never ever learn when to give a fuck and when not to. For instance, right about now I should be grabbing her by her shoulders, shaking her, yellin’ ‘WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? CANT YOU SEE WE HAVE A GREAT THING GOING IN HERE?’ but instead…
“Oh…that reminds me, I’ve got to shop some sportswear …..for Popat… nephew..Nice guy. I should be going now”. (Note to self: Run home, hug your pillow and cry your eyes out, you wimp!)
“See you around then” she says
“Yeah”
13D just pulls into the bus-stand. I turn back and run as fast as I can to catch it . Mangalore is a bitch when it comes to torrential rains. Heart-in-heart I wish that, on cue, Sonu Nigam or KK or Atif Aslam’ll sing some poignant Urdu-ish Hindi song about life, love, destiny and separation. Turns out today is ‘Melodrame-ki-maa-chudh-gayi-divas’
“Onji Bondel” I hear myself say fishing out a not-yet-wet 50 rupee note.
“Change ijji maaraya” comes the reply with no effort to conceal its annoyance.
It’s an awful feeling when one is ripped to little shreds and the whole world is busy giving a fuck about chillars for a bus-ticket.
