I was staring at my cell phone for what seemed like an hour now, expecting her message. I crossed my fingers. I was late and she’ll be furious. The thought of crossing my toes did happen to pass my mind, I brushed it aside. I tried my best to leave the office early today, but my team lead wouldn’t let me. The same old crap. Onsite calls. He said it was high time I discussed the issue no. 213 with Mr. Krishna. So I had to wait until 6:30 to make the call. The lazy bums in US start their day when our day ends. Life would’ve been so much better if only earth was flat, I thought. No late night calls, no late night issue resolutions, no auto-replies. I’ve grown sick of auto-replies.
On any given weekdays the calls to onsite would start at around 6:30 PM, and if we happen to have really complicated issues the call duration would go for about half-an-hour max, not beyond that. And then we would wind up everything and leave by the 7:15 PM shuttle. But today, I had to take the 8 PM shuttle, courtesy “ressource extraordinaire” Mr. Krishna, who happily over-slept in his cozy Jacksonville apartment bedroom, completely forgetting about the gravity of issue no. 213. And quite mercifully, I must say, he did pick up my 11th call, exactly at 7:13 PM. With his overtly hypnotic sleepy voice and 23 bellowing yawns in a 15 minute call, he made the blood rise to my temples. Would you believe me if I tell you that this guy got the “most valuable resource” award twice in a row? I’m pretty sure he is in really “good” terms with the top-brasses of this project.
So, I was late…
What’s the big fuss about my coming late anyways? I mean, this is only for the third time in over a year that I’ve been late. I can still vividly recollect the first twenty three dates of mine with her. I was punctual to the very last second even. The koffy house people used to set their watches correctly only when I showed up. But, with this new job life has become so hectic that I can’t seem to keep up with the time. And moreover, I’ve got a heartless brute for a team lead who wouldn’t understand what its like to turn up late on a date. Cursing my team lead under my breath I desperately hoped that the bus driver would do at least a Formula-3 if F-1 was too much to ask for.
Sometimes in life…
Let me rephrase that again; sometimes sounds a little too less frequent. In life the more desperately you want something to happen the probability of that thing happening will become lesser and lesser, and invariably it tends to zero as your desperation peaks. I named this the “Zetabrog’s inverse proportion law of desperation”. And needless to say, Zetabrog was proved flawlessly right once again. After twenty five desperate minutes and innumerable curses I reached koffy-house. But thankfully she didn’t message or call. Somehow I gathered that I could convince her with my explanations.
The koffy-house was not all that crowded today, save for a few customers here and there, so it wasn’t exactly what you call a crowd. Amongst them there were the ones who stopped by to grab a cuppa before heading back home, the occasional love-birds on their thirty-sixth date or something (who’d soon become the soft-targets of our “healthy” comments) and the loners who’d just place an order for a coffee and gape at it for hours together in a manner of contemplating about life while the caffeinated aroma spread all over their senses.
I didn’t bother to stop and admire the aroma; instead I headed straight to the first floor. It was customary for us to sit on the first table next to the open window, which gave us a good view of the Ganesh temple opposite to the koffy-house. I had my own reasons to choose this place and I wouldn’t tell her about that. Well, on a really good Wednesday evening you might chance to eye upon some pretty neat looking girls, traditionally dressed and running behind their mothers reluctantly, holding diyas and flowers. If you ask me, a Ganesh temple is the next best place to discotheques to try your luck. You never know when these girls would ditch you for all they care, so a backup was always the need of the hour.
When I stepped in I saw that she was sitting there, with her cell phone pressed to her ears, and her hands cupping her mouth so as to make sure that her voice did not break by interruptions. I walked around and sat opposite to her. With “sorry” written all over my face, I was hoping that she would end her talking sooner and get on with her complaints.
“Yeah he came now, but you know… I won’t talk to him” she was talking on the phone without even bothering to acknowledge my presence and then she went silent with occasional “hmm’s” and “yeah’s”. Probably it was Neha on the phone I thought.
“Oh come on, it’s been twenty minutes since I’ve been waiting awright…this is not done” she shouted on the phone to make sure that I would get a rough estimate of the seriousness of the situation.
“No…no… I won’t talk to him” she nodded her head decidedly. A wisp of black hair came over her forehead, I tried to pull it back, but she brushed me aside with a scornful look. A 60 year old who was sitting on the third table seemed curiously interested in us. He looked at me very intently and with surprise. Hasn’t he ever seen a guy being reprimanded by his girl friend for coming late? I mused.
She hadn’t ordered for anything, so I thought it would be a comforting gesture from my side if I did the ordering bit. I called the waiter and said, “Two coffee please. One black and one regular”. The waiter eyed at me in a strange way and walked back. Now what’s wrong with this guy? I didn’t order for whiskey on the rocks, did I?
“Yeah he ordered for coffee… you think I’ll drink that. Huh?” I wonder why she had to give a sly smile at that.
The waiter came and placed the coffee cups and left. I pushed the black coffee towards her and took mine. The 60 year old now sat gaping at me with his mouth wide open. I raised my cup in a manner of cheers to him and nodded my head, he turned away reproachfully. I think that guy never saw movies with love themes in his entire life.
A good twenty minutes passed, she didn’t even bother to take a sip from the cup, she didn’t utter a word of anger at me. Only a “this-won’t-work” look and non-stop ramblings on the cell phone. Why don’t a bunch of three headed Zigtropians come and abduct that Neha for some bizarre experimentation on her gall-bladder? I seriously was getting pissed off with her. Doesn’t she have that much sense to just hang up the phone and let us sort this out in peace?
“I’m going back Neha… will call you once I reach home… I’ve had enough of this”, she got up and then sat back again.
“Explanations? No… I’ll call you back… ok bye…” and then she cut the call. Thank god for that, I thought and adjusted the chair.
But to my surprise she stood up, came around the table and started to walk back. Now this is not done, I thought. I come all the way sitting through the traffic for almost an hour, just to be with her, just to talk to her and to listen, and all I get is this. I ran behind her and pleaded, “Wait… Divya…listen… I’m sorry… let me explain…” But she didn’t stop; she kept her pace and was walking downstairs. That’s when I realized I had to pay the bill so I walked back to the table in a hurry. The 60 year old had gathered that something was seriously wrong with me; he was staring at me as though I had flashed my bottoms in public or something.
I called the waiter and settled the bill, tipped him and ran towards the exit. The waiter and the old man exchanged quick glances of surprise.
It was too late I guess; she had left, probably in an autorickshaw. I don’t know why she was making such a big fuss about this. Lord god, why don’t I evaporate into thin air just like that, I thought. I then tried to call her. A recorded female voice shouted “I’m sorry. The number you’ve called has been temporarily disconnected”… Now check this out, so much for proper error messages. Why do they jumble up these messages and mouth the wrong ones at you? Then I thought of sending a message, but I got a delivery failure. I think I have to wait until Saturday or maybe tomorrow; she might pick up my call. I decided to walk back home.
When I reached home it was already 10, my room mate Neerav had had his dinner and was watching some nature program on NGC. I stepped inside and crashed onto the sofa. I was tired.
“Onsite calls eh?” he asked switching between NGC and Ftv.
“Yeah man major crap!!” I whined.
“It should’ve got over by 7, right? What took you so long then?” asked Neerav seemingly undecided about whether to watch Gaboon Vipers or Lingerie ramp walk.
“I had to see Divya today” I said removing my shoes.
He threw the remote aside and stared at me. For a moment he did not speak and then he shouted, “Now will you stop bullshitting me with this Divya thing”
I don’t know what was wrong with him; I asked calmly “hey Neerav… man what happened? Calm down. I had to meet her today. Remember? It’s Wednesday. You do know that right?”
“Yeah I know… I know that it’s Wednesday… I know”, his voice was breaking.
“Hey Neerav… wha...” suddenly he cut me across saying “Don’t you Neerav me… I’m growing sick of this… every Wednesdays… the same old shit…”
“Wha…” I stuttered.
“Wait… wait here… this should end here… wait…” saying that he walked back to his room furiously. And then he brought a pile of newspapers. He put that down and began to rummage through it mindlessly. I had no clue what he was doing. Then he took out one old newspaper, held it before me and shouted “Look… Look into this…5th August 2005, Divya Gupta, died in a bike accident… Mohit Kumar, the rider, survived with minor injuries… and that’s you… Please stop this madness man…” he wailed. My body became numb for a moment, I couldn’t think, nothing registered in my mind.
“I fear that I’ll lose you… come out of it… I beg you… please… every Wednesday … why can’t you forget her man… its all over Mohit…ITS ALL OVER” he crashed back with his hand on his forehead.
“Oh… it’s all over…?” My voice was dying in my throat. Suddenly vague images flashed in front of my eyes. Of bike, of speed, of curved roads… approaching headlights… danger… panic… then everything went blank. Then again images flashed… hospital beds, doctors and operation theatre doors… then I heard someone breathing in my ears saying “She’s no more…” and then it was blank again…
I sulked…
Tears trickled on my chin as I hugged Neerav…. A faint distant voice spoke “It’s all over…”…
Six months later…
On a Friday…
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” she stepped in bambi-eyed, and came along sat beside me.
“Twenty minutes?” I said showing her my watch.
“I’m sorry… Ok” and she called the waiter “I’ll order for the coffee?... ” she asked me.
I nodded.
“Yes madam? One black coffee and one regular. Is that it madam?” the waiter grinned with a sense of pride for having impressed his regular customers.
“Oh boy!! Yeah… make it fast, please” she said with the hauntingly sweet smile of hers.
That was Priya… and I had decided to move on… long since
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