the imposter
(Can one live all alone in such a beautiful evening...)
The crooner sang, gyrating her body to the tune, holding the mircophone close to her heaving assets, temptingly covered by a glittering piece of cloth...
The bar was yet to be filled in.
Few people were lounging on the cushions. The rotating lights fell here and there, casting searching spotlights, going with the mood of the evening. Outside it was surely raining.
Surely the streets outside were being washed of impurities, filth and dust and dirt.
The smoky evening descended to the city bar and lounge, at its heart almost.
A group of young women filed in silently... not silently altogether. Their mild giggles drew Arun's glance towards them.
The group, comprised of four middle aged women, settled down on the couch beside him, unpretentious.
The youngest of the group, the one who seemed most excited for she giggled and whispered more than the other three, sat on that part of the couch which was closest to Arun. She sat down, spreading her arms on the leather rest...with a disarming kind of cheerfulness and joviality. Her handbag, a silver coated one was placed just beside her, a few inches from Arun.He stooped down as he had to adjust his bootlace to perfection.The young woman was busy chatting with her friends.
'Bought a baluchari yesterday...just like Aditi's...that one she wore at Samir's party last week...same border...only mine is a bit more heavy...with intricate works all over the body...'
Arun heard her talking about her latest possession to her friends, with a sense of her inherent pride beaming her face.
'She might be the person who is playing the hostess...an ideal one for the night...'
Arun guessed using his practiced intuitions.
Intuitions play a very important role in any trade... Quickness with which one performs one job is another quality which always gets improved with intuitions.
Arun looked at his tumbler. Half way filled...or half way empty...there's always two ways of looking at everything.
Life always has two pronged edges.
Now that in this evening, he had decided to while time away in the bar with a tumbler...it could even be interpreted both ways...either he is a loner...or he is married or engaged and just chilling it out...
But then there is another possibility...he could be married and unhappy...Happy people don't drink alone...
One of the women, sitting opposite the young one cast a glance to him. A kind of a suspecting glance...
Arun looked down at his shoes, kind of busy looking at their laces...as if his whole life had been spent adjusting and admiring his glossy leather shoes.The woman joined in the conversation, seemingly getting rid of her temporary suspicion.
Arun took a swig and allowed the evening to get into him. An evening so lustrous, tempting...
The attendant was taking orders from the group of women. Arun looked at the busy hand of the attendant writing down orders on a notepad, with brown leather cover.
The women closest to him had opened a silver colored hand bag and started fumbling for something.
Arun looked at her face. She seemed to be a bit disturbed not finding her object...in her purse...whatever it might be...
Arun took the last swig quick and hurried out.
He got little time in his hand. He would have to give the debit card held tightly under his sleeve to an expert on cryptology...who would decipher the data from the card before hacking into a complicated process.
And the whole thing must be completed within three hours...the average response time taken by the banks and the law enforcing authorities to track the details of any missing debit or credit card.
Arun has been doing all these for the last few years...living on the edge really...
Life has really many edges...not only two...
Accomplice
---------------------
Even if he tried not to do that, still he was amused by his inner
urge to look at the face of the woman occupying the seat at the rear end
of the jeep, vis-a-vis him. Raj felt curious of the woman in
bottle-green pull-over and black jeans.
Or is it simple curiosity?
Was it not a kind of respect for someone with extraordinary courage?
The
woman, after getting into the jeep, chose to sit at the rear end. So
did he. The woman seemingly was traveling alone. So was he. The woman
kept her eyes glued to the moving hills outside, singing in a low tune,
almost inaudibly. It would take a few hours to reach Nathula Pass.
The jeep had four other passengers-two couples to be specific, sitting
on the long middle seat, quite comfortably. They were really boisterous.
They were munching, chewing, spitting, laughing, cajoling...and doing
whatever could be done by newly weds to express their newly found
happiness, freedom and satiety, specially after coming in close contact
with Nature...and natural elements.
Raj kept quiet, devouring the
virgin beauty of the mountains...the sight of snow accumulated by the
fringe of the road as a narrow white borderline. And of course, he
looked time to time at the lady in green opposite him, looking sideways
through the window.
Her ear rings...simple golden ones with no
amount of excess ornamentation, swung time to time as the jeep jerked on
the uneven road.She never looked inside the vehicle as if she was not
bothered by people inside the car.
Raj, however, cast twice at
least, shy smiles, when he was offered a piece of cake by one of the
lady occupants of the middle seat.
When the same offer was made to
the lady in green, she just for once looked at the co-passenger
thanking her curtly and then her head again moved sideways.At that
moment Raj looked at her. Her face was as simple as her ear-rings...no
touch of cream or lip-gloss. Her face was naturally bright and eloquent,
having a peculiar sense of calm.Her face had that strange aura of being
impassive, as if she had gone beyond the trivial details of life.The
only striking element of her otherwise calm face was a cut mark just
above her left brow.
Was she a monk?
How that could be?
A monk in jeans? no way!
But
then how come one be so calm when one is pitted against so much of
odds...of flying away from one place to another like a migratory
bird...of playing a game of hide and seek all the time?
Raj gesticulated by nodding his head as if he was speaking to someone.
The
jeep finally dropped them at Tsangu Lake.Stepping down from the jeep,
the first thing Raj felt was the chill in the air. It was end of
December and the chill here was really biting.
'What about glass of beer?'
Raj thought looking at the small huts selling drinks and hot noddles, just opposite the lake already frozen.
Two big Yaks, were standing nearby, like two live objects of photo-shoot for tourists and travelers.
He went into one of the huts.
The two couples, his co-passengers, Raj noted, had started walking towards the Pass, uphill, jabbering as usual.Only the woman in geen pullover could not be seen.
Where had she gone?
Still sitting in the car?
Raj thought before coming back mentally to his original object of entering the hut.
'Got beer?'
Raj
asked the woman sitting on a wooden stool at the back of an old
showcase with varied items on display...from gloves and caps made of Yak
skin to bottles of country and foreign liquor.
The woman showed him a low wooden bench, signaling him to sit there.
Raj
went in and sat down. From where he sat, he could see the lake and the
cars plying up and down the road. A bottle of beer arrived soon. Raj
took a long gulp first and brought out a cigarette.
It took him
barely half an hour to finish off the beer. Having paid the bill, he
went out of the hut. Their hired jeep was waiting at one corner of the
road, amidst other vehicles. He moved towards the car. There was no sign
of the other occupants. No one had come back.
The driver was seen chatting with other drivers a little distance away.
Raj had been to this place twice earlier so he felt no extravagant pull to climb all the way to the pass. He thought of resting here, leaning his back on the car's hood, waiting for others to come back.
Suddenly
there was a lot of activity in the place. A convoy of military vehicles
arrived and men in olive uniforms soon cordoned off the area.
'This place is sealed...all tourists are requested to come down...a dreaded terrorist is reportedly seen at the vicinity...'
The men in uniform blared on hand held megaphones.
There was a melee. People came rushing downhill.
The two couples came back soon with pale faces, huffing and puffing.
All tourist vehicles were searched.
An officer was showing people a picture of the suspect.
Some people were questioned.
Raj got into the vehicle.
The four others also got in. The driver switched on the ignition.
Just then there was a mild tap at the back window.
A military officer was seen standing there at the back. He asked the driver in chaste hindi to switch off the ignition.
The driver obeyed instantly.
'All of you stand down!'
The officer ordered.
Raj opened the rear door and got off.
The driver and the other four also got off.
'Do anyone of you know this woman?'
The
officer asked them showing a picture of a youngish looking woman with a
bright natural face with a cut mark over her left brow.
The driver fumbled for words. The newly wed honeymooners stood there with a sense of being petrified.
Raj looked at his watch. Forty five minutes had already gone since they arrived here.
'She must've found a way out...'
Raj thought and nodded in negative to the officer.
He prayed to God to keep her safe.
He
had been doing this over the years...helping some extraordinary people
to move from one place to another...and he usually gets paid for that.
Sometimes he feels sorry for those people, specially when he finds them reported dead in newspapers.
He
has never found them harmful. He always finds them reticent, sincere,
devoted, and awkwardly secretive and silent. But that's how they are
meant to be...
And that's how he is meant to be...to act as temporary accomplice of 'so-called' terrorists...and to get paid for being so...that's his livelihood...
*gnothiseauton...
The flight to Singapore from New York, crashed somewhere
in the sea, near Malaysia last night that is on the twenty fourth of December,
2011.
Reports revealed that the possibility of a single
survivor is pretty obscure. Aviation experts are yet to come to any definite
probable cause behind the horrendous crash which had taken away lives of
holiday revelers comprised of mostly American citizens, a few Japanese and
south-east Asians, as they usually remain unsure of any definite paradigm
working behind any crash. Aviation experts are like theorists believing in the HCF
(Highest common factor, to put it in mathematical terms…)
The search so far yielded ninety nine dead bodies. All
dead crew members were found. All dead passengers found barring one with an
Indian origin-Deboline Mukherjee…a professor of Psychology, employed in the
University of Berkley.
Twenty four hours after the crash, the rescue mission
officials were still hoping that Deboline alias Debs would be found.
So virtually the search was still on, though much
truncated in both design and temperament.
Somewhere in the middle of a dense forest, when Debs
regained consciousness, she had only a feeling of all encompassing darkness and
severe numbness; as if she had died but fortunately and quite interestingly she
could see and perceive her state of being. Her baggy beige cotton trousers torn
off from her knees revealed her blood stained whitish legs. Her snickers were
still on. Her white cotton shirt in tatters, were on still, revealing her
lingerie. She thought she could see everything but still there was a kind of a
mental crisis brewing up within apart from her numbness in her whole body.
It was a novel and hitherto inexperienced kind of a
crisis. She could not remember why she was lying there in such a pitiable
state. She tried to think hard but the more she tried to think and recall the past;
the more the pain on her hindbrain increased and the numbness befell onto her
to make her almost immovable. She just could not move. She just lied there,
still, like a dead man. But she could perceive the surroundings in the semi
dark state. Trees…a lot of trees…as if a whole forest had grown around her and
she felt she was just a part of it.
Debs felt unease. She felt like being petrified. She felt
she had nothing to remember and nothing to forget. She could not remember
herself…her identity.
‘Am I a tree?’ Debs thought…
‘But how that could be? Which darn tree wear white shirt
and snickers and baggy beige cotton pants?’
‘Who am I?’
Debs thought, almost cried aloud. The pain on her hind
brain returned then and there with all its might.
‘Oh! My God! I’m dying…no no…I’m alive…No! No! I’m dead…’
Debs seemed confounded about her state of being even.
‘O My God! I can’t even grasp my own state of being,
fully …a very basic and primary state of being…DEAD or ALIVE?’
Debs alias Deboline Mukherjee thought she never knew her
name. She never knew she actually had an identity…a name…a job…and lot of
social connections in both America and India.
In fact she had lost her all information embedded into
her fluid brain. She could not recall anything concerning herself…her name, her
father’s name…her family; friends…even her residential address.
Debs finally concluded that it would be better not to
think at all. For her newly found experience taught her that she could only
stay lying and put up with her numbness, as if she was made to stay there all
through. She also realized thinking could lead to terrible physical
discomfort-it could cause her brain burst out like a volcano…as if lava of
burning thoughts would emerge…blasting forth her skull.
She thought it would be sane to just lie there, as she
found herself in right at the beginning when the darkness became a semi
permeable membrane, allowing a bit of light to make her perceive certain
things.
She just lied down, like a branch of tree cut off from
the tree, waiting for the decomposition to set in.
‘Am I a tree? No! No! I shouldn’t think…’
Debs cried aloud. She felt her cry was too short lived to
penetrate the darkness of the land and the density of the forest.
She lied still for few hours, not exactly knowing though
how many hours for the concept of understanding time and its passage seemed
incomprehensible to Debs in her numbed state. She just lied, as if a newly
sprouted vegetable with a lot of colors on, trying to understand the
environment.
She thought she should not think. She thought she should
try to sit up and stir her body. But the moment she tried to do that, she felt
she could not do that. But quite surprisingly, she felt no pain, lying like a
branch of a tree, still on the ground.
‘Ah…I can at least feel…feel the ground beneath and the
trees above in this dark, silent, somber world!’
Debs thought and felt happy. Now this happiness was such
that it had a bizarre effect on her brain. Thinking of being in a happy state
considerably lessened the pain on hindbrain but made her physique more numb.
She felt sleepy. But sleep was not setting in perfectly
because sleep she felt she did not simply require; for she felt the very next
moment that she was actually sleeping with her eyes fast closed. So she tried
to wake up, splitting wide open her hazel eyes…but the very next moment she
thought waking up was made redundant by the simple fact that she was wide
awake, perceiving the trees above in this semi dark world.
So Debs just lied…happy…like a branch of a tree…in a semi
dark world…comatose…vegetative…clueless of everything about her…her
identity…her social status…her religion…her
adopted country and the native one…her political affiliation…her
intelligence…her sense of humor…her animalistic instincts…
Deboline Mukherjee, professor of psychology, University
of Berkley, green card holder….a Hindu Brahmin by origin…daughter of Shri
Biswanath Mukherjee and Srimati Kalyani
Mukherjee…having blood group a+…an avid quizzer
and social worker…a brilliant teacher…a divorcee…a mother of a kid called
Sandy…just lied…
Deboline just lied…in her vegetative state…devoid of her
everything…except her sense of some crude feelings…and with all her numbness
and pain on hindbrain…which could only be lessened by happy feelings…
Deboline just lied sans every normative standard of identity…feeling
happy.
Now keeping happy one for long, only by thinking and
feeling, was too difficult an assignment for Debs. So, she devised a plan.
Every time she felt unease or restless, she thought of God.
‘Hey God…be there with me…help me get through this strange
ordeal.
After doing this for a few times, she thought she was
doing something very idiotic. She felt she was an imbecile, for she felt who
was she seeking to be with her…God?
‘Who is God? I’ve never seen anyone like God…Is there any
one called God? How does he look like? Just like me? Or someone very alien to
me? Is he HE or SHE? Does this creature
know me? Has God any definite identity?’
Debs felt the pain again coming back hard…that stinging
sensation with a lot of jarring effect on head.
‘No! I’ve promised myself not to think hard…but only to
feel happy…but lying here like
vegetable…how can I be happy…true and permanent happiness surely
requires something to be injected into me…at least some happy ideas…’
Debs tried a bit of self analysis.
‘Hey! I’m not dead! For a dead person can never do self
analysis…a dead person can never think so many things…a dead person can never
think of God! O god! I’m ALIVE!’
This very thought that she was alive, very much alive,
made Debs very happy. She thought she should cultivate on this particular idea -
only that she was very much alive.
She thought being alive was the only truth she should
need to know and understand and bear on…
‘Being alive…it is the greatest happiness of
all…identities of any person…however big or rich or full of promises and
potential…are nothing…simply nothing!’
Debs thought.
This time, thinking made her happy…unbelievably happy and
she suddenly felt all confusions of her mind had gone away. She felt she was
the happiest. She felt she could just stay there like a vegetable with this
pleasing numbness, without physical movements, without anything to live by or
even live for. She felt eased and comforted within. She felt she had become
ethereal. She felt she had become God herself.
*gnothi
seauton (Greek):
Know thyself. (A precept inscribed in gold letters over the portico of the
temple at Delphi. Its authorship has been ascribed to Pythagoras, to several of
the wise men of Greece, and to Phemonoe, a mythical Greek poetess. According to
Juvenal, this precept descended from heaven.)
Prologue:
I am nothing…
I am just a kind of hard bound copy. I am pretty old. My
date of birth could be taken or assumed on the basis of the records I carry and
as all that are scribbled on me dates back to 1946, my year of birth, if not
the exact date, could be assumed on any particular day of 1946.
The person who wrote on me, I mean on my pages, died in
front of me…
I remember the date of his death…it was 23rd
august, 1946, for my every page, upon which he scribbled, was marked by dates …
He, the man who wrote on me, was a madcap for sure, for he
scribbled on me all that he felt…the good, the bad and the ugly.
Most of his scribbles narrated ugly things.
I think I should talk about that later.
Let me begin with the beginning.
One day, he came home (to his shanty at Sealdah station
premises) quite early, compared to his usual time of return. The
grandfather clock of the station had struck twelve then. He came looking
tensed. He came sweated, hungry, haggard looking as usual but his brows were
crooked and he was perspiring hard on that august night.
The first thing he did, after coming home, was to look for
me. He brought me out from the big steel trunk where I had been kept uselessly thrown,
covered with dust and then he dusted my face up with his gamcha (a rough
woven piece of cotton cloth, red and white stripes all over, usually used for
rinsing his wet body after his occasional bath). Then he lighted up a taper
and sat with me on his moth eaten cot which creaked at his every slight
movement.
The shanty was all his. It had no furniture except the cot
and a chair. It had asbestos roof and brick walls. The brick walls were broken
and teethed, as if they would crumble down any moment. Still they never
crumbled till he lived and died.
Coming back to the beginning…he started scribbling on my
first page, with his fountain pen which had a silver pointed nib that vomited
too much of ink sometimes. He scribbled. He scribbled from that night on…every
night almost, barring a few gaps…with almost religious devotion…with the
station master’s punctuality of checking time tables. He scribbled…
Chapter one
------------------------
15th Aug, 1946, 12.05 a.m.
‘MY NAME IS NOT DECLARED HERE FOR I AM AFRAID THAT MIGHT
JEOPARDIZE MY EXISTENCE’
That’s what the madcap wrote first thing in block letters;
on me…his hand was trembling fast as if he was going to tear my first
page…still he managed to write, somehow. He wrote few more lines beneath this
eerie statement. Here they are:
‘I have seen a thing which is suspicious…considering the
lull before the storm outside…considering the scent of blood in the air…
It was drizzling few minutes back when I was coming back
home, here, at Sealdah, on foot. The Burman street was desolate…I
took a short cut …reaching the front of a mosque, I was pretty surprised to see
so many people there! So many hovering around wearing caps and there was a
truck outside the mosque…I suspect, it had the arms! Believe me…it had arms
like daggers, swords…there I heard hushed sloguns…sloguns like ‘larke lenge…Pakistan!’
On Chittaranjan Avenue I found similar trucks…with
hordes of people with white caps…my god! Tomorrow is a holiday, as declared
earlier…tomorrow there might be troubles…’
Chapter two
-------------------------
16th Aug, 1946, 10.49 p.m.
‘What I feared, came to pass…god saved me…I don’t know what
great service I rendered to the Almighty…but believe me…I am saved! Hurrah! I
am saved…
Today Kolkata witnessed an orgy of murder, loot and arson…I
don’t know what our authorities and peace keepers and foreign sergeants doing!
But I only saw blood and dead bodies… I went out early today…for my usual
morning tea and post-tea loo-break… the
sun had then just come out…but the trains whistled not…the station looked
empty…methought it was only a holiday syndrome…but soon after I heard cries…and
shouts and saw people…moving like a gigantic swarm of bees with lathis,
swords, axes…running towards the nearby building which housed shops and shop-owners.
They were all shouting at the top of their voice…they were all red-eyed…as if
they were all thirsty of blood…they looked like Hindus…They were Hindus…they
shouted ‘ma kali…’
God! At that moment I forgot what my religion is…methought I
stood there dumb…but soon my senses awakened…as someone asked me to open my
trousers to see if I had castration or not…I tugged my crumpled worn out
threadbare trousers…but he…the man with thirsty eyes pulled them down with no
effort wasted…he stared hard at my penis while I stood shamelessly naked and closed
my eyes in fear…in shame…in hatred…
Now I have exact reports of killings…I heard them on police
wireless…I heard them on streets…I collected and collated them…in the most
secretive manner possible…avoiding maximum risk of my life…I pretended to be INSANE!
Yes! I acted like an insane and walked through the alleys…saw how women were
raped…saw how daggers went into bodies…into rectums! My god! The sight was so
brutal! The sight was so gory! But I had to bear all of them with a kind of
impassivity befitting my disguise of a madcap!
Sorry…I am digressing a bit…please never mind…I think I am
hyper-excited…I think, after witnessing the most horrendous acts of bloodbath
and carnage…I am losing my wits…seriously…I am losing it…
Coming back to facts and figures…yes…people died…people died
sitting…peeing…eating…drinking…as if they were destined to die that way…I
estimate it could be around two thousand…two thousand…considering the average
amount of corpses lying on ten streets I visited…Yes…only ten streets I walked
through…now there are at least hundred
streets in Calcutta…on ten streets I counted at least two hundred corpses…I
might be wrong…my calculations could be very coarse…I don’t know…but people
died…killed rather…mercilessly…my god! I saw naked bodies of beautiful
women…God! They wore blood marks on vagina…No…please…don’t pass me on as
necromantic…I noticed things…I acted like a mad and saw people…what the hell
the gora sainiks doing? Puffing cigarettes and totting?
I saw another interesting thing. I saw vultures! Yes! I saw
vultures hovering over the sooty sky somewhere…my god! Vultures on the city?
God knows what is going to happen? God save me…’
Chapter three
-----------------------
18th Aug, 1946, 9.10 p.m.
‘Thank god! I’m still alive…god knows how long? I haven’t
eaten properly anything for the last two days…the streets stink…vultures and
corpse bearers are everywhere…corpses and corpses…I feel like vomiting all the
time…I will die vomiting, for sure…I feel…I am the only man alive here at Sealdah…the
trains are not moving…the big yard looks deserted…no…vultures are sitting on
the tin roofs of the compound…vultures…hairless vultures…o how much I hate
them!’
Chapter four
-------------------------
20th Aug, 1946 8.30 a.m.
‘Mr. Suhrawardy is not acting properly…he has expressed
shock and concern…but no ground actions so far…other than corporation cleaners
cleaning corpses and burning them here and there…some military pickets have
come up…scattered…no people on streets…vultures, cleaners and military only…they
are there… I have got running temperature…having no appetite…lost consciousness
twice…so far…’
Chapter five
---------------------------
23rd Aug,
1946, 10.50 p.m.
‘God knows… what has happened outside…I opened my eyes after
a long sleep perhaps…trying to write…it pains…my whole body cannot be moved a
single inch without pains…it is probably my last entry…I am going to
die…feeling no hunger though…only my head is as heavy as a bulk of steel
slab…Heard from a man who brought me some food that the government is going to
bifurcate our Bangla into two…east Pakistan and west…heard that some
meetings are held at the Hon’ble Viceroy’s office…Hindustan is going to be
divided…a plan is hatched… he claimed it would resolve the issue of communal
riots forever…cause the partition would be on the basis of religion…god! What
an idea! God! What an idea to help more riots in future! I sincerely hope…it
will bring peace and sanity…it will bring happiness…and drive the vultures out
of the city! But the plan of partition…it might change…it might be a bluff…I
don’t know…it might be the case that the man who brought me foods wanted to
make me fool on my deathbed…he worked at a radio station, he claimed…he claimed
he knows things…god knows…let there be peace…even if we die all…let there be
peace even if our Bangla is divided…let there be no rapes…no pushing through daggers …let we all live in
peace…and die in peace…amen’
Epilogue
-------------------
The mad man died soon after that. He died with his
fountain pen on his hand! Only the page got torn midway, for suddenly his hand
started shaking a bit too fast and his eyes popped out and he clutched his
chest grimacing with pain.His whole body started shaking as if he was having a
kind of irregular but deep
Just another day...
Devakshi was in a terrible hurry. She did not have the luxury to spend her usual stipulated forty five minutes in the washroom. She had to curtail her usual morning sauna bath in winter. She had to cut short her breakfast even! She just had to...
For the A.G.M would start at ten a.m. sharp and she had to attend office before nine fifteen. So she just gobbled the crumb of bread and bit a slab of cheese and went out. Luckily she got the taxi!
She got into the cab and ordered the driver to take her straight to the Parkstreet-Camac street crossing.
It was only eight thirty then. It would not take more than half an hour to reach the crossing, she calculated.
Sitting on the backseat of the cab, she took a long deep breath.
'UFF!its so tough to live single and manage all things singlehandedly...'
She thought as the taxi sped along the road fast. It was another winter morning. The sun was not blazing. The cool air in fact forced her to keep the rear windows up.
At nine almost the taxi arrived at the Parkstreet- J.N.Road turn.
The traffic signal was red. She had to wait. The engine was purring soft.The cabbie was chewing something.
'He might be chewing ghutkha...so obnoxious!'
Devakshi thought and even chuckled.
The signal was still red.
Only a few cars were moving in and out...still the signal was kept red!
'Curse the traffic sergeants!'
Devakshi mumbled in impatience that brew strong within.
She knew that she was getting tensed up. She looked at her silver shining dial of her favourite wristwatch.
It was already five past nine!
'God! move on!'
It finally turned the welcome green...
'Turn left! quick!'
Devakshi barked almost.
The cabbie turned the steering wheel obediently.
Finally...
The cab stopped at the destined crossing. Devakshi got down from the cab and paid the bill in hurry. She thought she should run into the white building at the crossing. She looked at her watch. It shone bright as usual, telling her the time, perfectly.
Nine-ten.
Just then...
She collided with someone. Collided hard really. The files fell on the pavement.
'Oho! I'm so sorry ma'm!'
Someone said, apologetically.
'Can't you move with your eyes opened?'
Devakshi barked.
'Hey!...its YOU!!!'
The man smiled, surprised.
Devakshi removed her sunglasses and looked straight.
The face of the man with a mole on the right side of upper lip and specs said it all.
'Hello? hi! I'm so...sorry...'
Devakshi murmured in utter disbelief.
'Why ...I mean...how...you are here?'
The man asked amused as he started picking up the files from the pavement.
Devakshi did not answer rightaway.
She just kept on looking at her first love. She just kept on looking at the man whom she had left abandoned. It had been her matter of choice then. She had wanted to climb the ladder. She had to move out...
The man picked the files and even arranged them neat before handing them back to her.
Devakshi still kept on staring at Ryan...Ryan D'costa...
Memories inundated her. She felt kind of dizzy. She started perspiring hard on the December morn.
'Hey! You are back here?'
Ryan asked smiling.
'You've grown older...I can see white streaks...'
Ryan remarked smiling as he looked straight.
'Yea...'
Devakshi finally answered.
'You're getting late perhaps...good to see you after a long time...I'm also in a hurry...need to catch a cab to airport...'
Ryan said.
'Where are you going?'
Devakshi asked impromptu.
'I don't stay here anymore dear...after you left for Bengaluru in 1999, I also moved out of the city...came here to visit some relatives...stayed at a nearby hotel last night...now will have a catch a noon flight to San Fransisco...long story...lucky me...I just came out to buy a pack of cigarrettes...and see...we collided with each other after so many years! amazing! so coincidentally true!bye bye dear...take care...'
Saying this much Ryan waved Devakshi adieu...he strolled away...before gaining speed to cross the road and disappear into a hotel premises.
Deavakshi said nothing. She just kept standing.
'I should have taken his number...I should have ...no! how could I? NO! that would have been bad! He might have refused...might have agreed? who knows?'
Devakshi thought. The wrist watch shone brighter this time. It was only ten to ten.
Devakshi didn't notice that. She did not notice how Time ticked away...
Devakshi was in a terrible hurry. She did not have the luxury to spend her usual stipulated forty five minutes in the washroom. She had to curtail her usual morning sauna bath in winter. She had to cut short her breakfast even! She just had to...
For the A.G.M would start at ten a.m. sharp and she had to attend office before nine fifteen. So she just gobbled the crumb of bread and bit a slab of cheese and went out. Luckily she got the taxi!
She got into the cab and ordered the driver to take her straight to the Parkstreet-Camac street crossing.
It was only eight thirty then. It would not take more than half an hour to reach the crossing, she calculated.
Sitting on the backseat of the cab, she took a long deep breath.
'UFF!its so tough to live single and manage all things singlehandedly...'
She thought as the taxi sped along the road fast. It was another winter morning. The sun was not blazing. The cool air in fact forced her to keep the rear windows up.
At nine almost the taxi arrived at the Parkstreet- J.N.Road turn.
The traffic signal was red. She had to wait. The engine was purring soft.The cabbie was chewing something.
'He might be chewing ghutkha...so obnoxious!'
Devakshi thought and even chuckled.
The signal was still red.
Only a few cars were moving in and out...still the signal was kept red!
'Curse the traffic sergeants!'
Devakshi mumbled in impatience that brew strong within.
She knew that she was getting tensed up. She looked at her silver shining dial of her favourite wristwatch.
It was already five past nine!
'God! move on!'
It finally turned the welcome green...
'Turn left! quick!'
Devakshi barked almost.
The cabbie turned the steering wheel obediently.
Finally...
The cab stopped at the destined crossing. Devakshi got down from the cab and paid the bill in hurry. She thought she should run into the white building at the crossing. She looked at her watch. It shone bright as usual, telling her the time, perfectly.
Nine-ten.
Just then...
She collided with someone. Collided hard really. The files fell on the pavement.
'Oho! I'm so sorry ma'm!'
Someone said, apologetically.
'Can't you move with your eyes opened?'
Devakshi barked.
'Hey!...its YOU!!!'
The man smiled, surprised.
Devakshi removed her sunglasses and looked straight.
The face of the man with a mole on the right side of upper lip and specs said it all.
'Hello? hi! I'm so...sorry...'
Devakshi murmured in utter disbelief.
'Why ...I mean...how...you are here?'
The man asked amused as he started picking up the files from the pavement.
Devakshi did not answer rightaway.
She just kept on looking at her first love. She just kept on looking at the man whom she had left abandoned. It had been her matter of choice then. She had wanted to climb the ladder. She had to move out...
The man picked the files and even arranged them neat before handing them back to her.
Devakshi still kept on staring at Ryan...Ryan D'costa...
Memories inundated her. She felt kind of dizzy. She started perspiring hard on the December morn.
'Hey! You are back here?'
Ryan asked smiling.
'You've grown older...I can see white streaks...'
Ryan remarked smiling as he looked straight.
'Yea...'
Devakshi finally answered.
'You're getting late perhaps...good to see you after a long time...I'm also in a hurry...need to catch a cab to airport...'
Ryan said.
'Where are you going?'
Devakshi asked impromptu.
'I don't stay here anymore dear...after you left for Bengaluru in 1999, I also moved out of the city...came here to visit some relatives...stayed at a nearby hotel last night...now will have a catch a noon flight to San Fransisco...long story...lucky me...I just came out to buy a pack of cigarrettes...and see...we collided with each other after so many years! amazing! so coincidentally true!bye bye dear...take care...'
Saying this much Ryan waved Devakshi adieu...he strolled away...before gaining speed to cross the road and disappear into a hotel premises.
Deavakshi said nothing. She just kept standing.
'I should have taken his number...I should have ...no! how could I? NO! that would have been bad! He might have refused...might have agreed? who knows?'
Devakshi thought. The wrist watch shone brighter this time. It was only ten to ten.
Devakshi didn't notice that. She did not notice how Time ticked away...
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