Words

It was a day like that.

A Sunday. Very early in the morning, ‘Ma’ asked him to sit with ‘Pa’, “We’ve to talk.” He guessed the issue to be risen shortly. For the past few weeks he had been avoiding it. But there was no running away from it now.

They started with a general talk about his general life. How’s the office going and the weather outside getting cold and how he should be giving attention to his future, now that he is of a certain age. A certain marriageable age.

He squirmed in his seat. “Why the hell today of all days, why are they hell bent on spoiling my Sunday, especially when I’ve to meet her today, why don’t they let me go and have a bath, hmmm, what will I be wearing today…” and things like these were going at a rapid pace through his mind.

Ma couldn’t tolerate the patience that Papa showed. She jumped straight to the point. “Look beta, there is this family in Paharganj, of our caste, the girl is a teacher in a Govt. school. The family is good, the girl is good, I’ve met them and they are eager to meet you soon.”

“Meet me? Why?” He almost jumped up from his seat. Father looked at him punishingly. He sat down.

Then Ma came up with the ace up in her sleeve. Out came a photograph of a girl, (a very nice looking girl he observed) and he was asked of his opinion of her. “Ummm…What?…She is okay…Alright…What do I Say? You guys know, ‘m not interested in this marriage-sharriage thing so early in life.” “You are 26”, reminded Pa. “Whatever! I’m not marrying anywhere in near future. Have to settle down in career, then only will I think about it all. And you guys please don’t search a Bahu (daughter-in-law) for you, I’ll find her myself. And (with a mischievous grin) if nobody else, Fatima is there na!

Ma recoiled at the name. “Na na beta, not an other religion girl for us!” And he successfully deviated attention from the urgent matter at hand. Fatima was the name he’d given to ‘her’, when Ma constantly annoyed him by her multiple questions on whether he was seeing anyone these days, whether there was a girl in his life, with whom he talked so late in night and a million more queries. Now when he looks back at it, he feels that Ma must have guessed correctly, and that Sunday talk was a ploy to bring out whatever he himself had in mind. It worked, and how.

Khair, anyways, he managed to wriggle out of the situation by making a number of excuses, like going to meet Amul & Sachin & Gudiya and among other things, going to a lot of places in the span of the day, so he should leave early, only if you’ll allow him to.

By the time he left home, the gears, pulleys & shafts inside his mind were working feverishly. He had to meet her, but only in the afternoon, after her classes were to get over. And by the time he reached India Gate, about half an hour later, on the way to Amul & Sachin’s place, he had an idea in mind. A dangerous idea to say the least.

He called her to meet him on the K.G. Marg bus stand. “Leave the class, it’s very important.” Alarmed, when she arrived, he was delighted to note that she was dressed in her plainest of outfits. A college-dirty, blue denim with a blue hi-neck sweater that combined to make her look the most common of girl-next-door girls. They hugged, and he asked her to board the next bus home with him.

“Adi?”

“Dee! Believe me, it’s necessary. Will explain you everything on the way.”

On the way, he once again asked her if she was sure of everything she felt about him, “Because there will be no turning back after this.” A raised eyebrow settled the matter well enough.

They reached to find out that nobody was at home! Ma had gone out shopping and Pa might have gone to the nearby temple!

Waiting at the landlord’s floor above, they suffered many a anxious moments, waited almost for two hours. The landlady, excited to see a ‘guest’ with Adi, tried her best to keep them at ease. And they waited still a little more.

Finally, Papa came home, unlocked the front door and went inside. He went after him. Surprised that he had come home so early, Pa asked, “What happened? Didn’t you meet anyone today?”

Legs shaking and with a rapidly drying throat he replied, “Pa, I’ve brought somebody to meet you.”

He doesn’t know what she was feeling at the moment, she herself doesn’t know, but the moment she nervously came in through the front door and after the first greeting, things gradually eased out. Only a little though.

Both of them talked about a lot of things, how she and Adi came to know each other, what was she doing, life, poetry, studies, some politics too (if he remembers correctly), then making tea in the kitchen together while he was sitting inside, nervously waiting for the outcome of it all, then more of talk until it was time for her to leave.

When he came home after seeing her off, Pa didn’t say a word. “He must have something to say, he must have liked her. Or not liked her, what is he thinking, how will Ma react to this all”, but no reaction. Nothing at all.

Not being able to gather the courage to inquire directly, and not in a state to leave the matter in limbo, troubled, edgy, nervous, he took a blanket and pretended to sleep. Which he couldn’t. Tossing and turning in the bed for nearly two hours, he finally asked Papa, from beneath the blanket he was hiding in, “Pa, did you like Dee?”

🙂

It is days like these, that become bigger than years in themselves.

Because it was on the 10^th of December 2006, that he took her home to meet the parents, and got blessed and blissed.

It was lying there on the stairs.

I didn’t believe I see it. But it was as real as the early December morning I’d opened the front door to fetch my news daily. “Maybe, the first chai didn’t work enough!” I thought.

Gingerly I touched it with my right toe. It was cold, metal cold. And real. Bewildered, I stood there. Then I bent down to examine it more closely. It was in perfect condition. An old, but real Smith Corona. I pressed a key and it sprang to life. A smile swept across my face.

Who would have done this? Left an ancient, but wonderful typewriter outside my front door at 7 in the morning? The typewriter gleamed in the morning light, I looked around to see if someone was playing pranks on me. It looked inviting. “Maybe Anu is up to her usual tricks. Hmmm. But where would she get hold of a genuine typewriter like this?” Looking around for the last time, I picked it up and carried it inside.

My table was already cluttered with books and magazines and newspapers. I put it on the bed, folding blankets, putting them neatly away. “Time to get ready Adi, and no newspaper today also”, I muttered. “Let this fella come around asking for money, I’ll tell him the worth of a single newspaper. Why don’t these people understand? For god sake, I’m a copywriter, and a copywriter needs to read his newspapers!”

By the time I returned home that night, the typewriter had already slipped out of my mind. It came back, just as I was turning the key in. All that seemed unreal then, and there were chances that it might have been an extended dream of mine.

I peeked in through the door. It was there on my bed. Just as I’d left it. Winking in the ‘zero watt’ bulb I leave on when going out. “But who was it?” I thought again.

I’d had a terrible day at the office. “Being a junior copy should not mean that seniors will take me for granted. Must get a few published campaigns in my folio soon.”

Had returned with a couple of new briefs in hand, to churn up some print campaign for them, all by the next afternoon. ‘Homework’ I call these.

Changed into my night clothes, turned on the sports channel showing the Indo-Pak cricket match highlights and mindlessly chomped away the haka noodles bought in from the Chinese take-out. “Why didn’t he leave a laptop for me? He or She? Whatever.” Losers don’t get laptops, they get old typewriters, the devil inside sniggered. Promptly, the resident angel corrected him, ‘old, workable typewriter!’ Yeah right, Workable! And I sniggered absent-mindedly at the dropped catch, I’d already seen thrice in the afternoon news.

Workable? Catch? Wow! I left the dinner midway and grabbed the nearest blank page. The problem, there was none. “Why not the typewriter?” Hmmm. Cleaning up the mess on table, I put the typewriter on the prime real estate part. And thought about the brief I’d to work upon, ‘no more dropped catches in your life, life doesn’t give second chances, get the insurance cover for your home, office or property, today…’ Bingo!

The more I typed, the more freely the words came. It was, as if happening on its own. I couldn’t sleep that night, completed my two campaigns by early morning, got ready and flied off to office.

When I returned home that evening, I would have hugged the typewriter, if it were human. Both my concepts had been approved and sent to the computer artists, to be converted in to layouts. It was easily the best day of my professional life so far! And I slept like a log.

From then on, it became a superstition, a habit, a need. Whenever I got a major brief, I itched to get back home and type it out on the typewriter. And it worked! I got promoted, gradually I became the ‘guy’ in advertising, the upcoming, brilliant talent that everyone speaks about. I changed three jobs in eleven months with a three-fold increase in pay packet. I’d arrived.

The typewriter became my most prized possession, ‘the gift’ that had changed my life.

Winter is here again. It’ll be an exciting day at the office, I think, as I get up and put the tea on boil. Sleepily, I trudge to the front door for my daily newspaper dose.

I’m startled to see a strange man standing outside. He is wearing a black leather overcoat, the kind you see in old movies, and his face is covered with a hat. Without a word, he hands out the newspaper he is holding, which I’m surprised to discover is of the day when the ‘gift’ arrived in my life. Dec. 05, 2006. “What’s going on?” Finally, I manage to mumble.

With a curiously old world accent, he says, nay strikes, “Good Morning, Mr. Adi. I’m sorry that I borrowed this paper without your permission. Now, if you will excuse my impertinence, may I’ve my typewriter back?”

“God must be like my PTI”, he thought.

Leaving the bag at the edge of the ground, he ran towards the line. “Who else can stand on a raised platform above all the teachers and even the principal, survey all the children gathered on the ground with one wide glance or incredibly appear immediately at every scene of mischief? And, he communicates in such a large, booming voice and gives strict punishment for having fun in what is rightly a serious business.”

Morning assemblies were always a serious affair.

Once again he was late, which was perfectly normal for him. He reached school only after the prayer had finished with the exercises just going to start. From the end of the line, where the tallest boys of the class stood, and thus from where he could not see the drills, he sneaked up, one boy by one, then halfway ahead the line, greeted his bench mate on the route and gradually weaved his way forward to the front of the class, assembled in stiff attention.

And then, with the beat of the drum, he danced.

Or he thought of it as a dance. He had seen Saif Ali Khan’s steps in a song of ‘Ashiq Aawara’ last evening and mixed them with MJ moonwalking on MTV. Instead of the left right, left right, left right command of the god mentioned above, he imitated a hybrid of these two dance steps, amusing his class and school mates alike.

He loved it when he made people smile.

Fourteen years later, as he was getting ready for the office today, late by an hour, which still is perfectly normal for him; he overheard the assembly drills being conducted at the govt. school, just across the boundary wall of the ‘single story’ apartments he stays in these days.

And while all this came flooding by, he remembered God as a benevolent Physical Training Instructor who despite being present everywhere, seeing, hearing everything and punishing errant tasks strictly, was somehow kind to him, and even let him do his little jigs at the front of the class 9^th B, assembled for the morning prayers.

And then, with the beat of the drum, he danced the same dance, once again.

Thanks to all my friends for the wonderful Diwali wishes. Both me and dee, wish you all, the very best in life.

And I’m very sorry for not visiting any of the blogs for quite some time now, and because of some urgent issues, this might continue in the future also.

Will meet you all on delhidreams soon.

Take Care and lots of Love,

– Adee

aajsubah
mile
to bees minute ke liye
sirf

metro ki bheed mein
gale bhi na laga paya tujhe
kitna kuch kehna tha
lab thhe ke khamosh hi rahe
boli zubaan ankhon ki
sirf

kisi baras
jab baithegi tu
bayein hath mere
tabhi manegi ab
diwali meri

its the festival of lights, Deepawali or Diwali tomorrow, my favourite festival. we met early morning for twenty odd minutes at the metro station. despite being ill, she crossed half the city to come and wish me. all i wished for was the Diwali when she’ll be there in person, with me.

He had been sitting at the bus stop for close to two hours now. With his best friend for company, he had not really missed the six, bus number 440’s that would have taken him home.

Missing he was, not home, but somebody who had taken an other bus to her part of the city, early in the evening. It was a moment that had tore away something in his being, leaving him with an abject loneliness, and a desire to run after her, or to get on the next possible bus & stop her from going away from him.

For the past one week, he has been trying to write a story about the day it was. He wants to tell you how lonely he felt after she had left, how confused he was for missing her as much as he was and how the dearest of his friend couldn’t make him accept this feeling towards her. He wants to tell you how frightened he was to agree to what his heart was telling him, to ask her whether she felt something similar or not, scared to lose her, to harm her in any way and most of all, tormented by his own mind, which had deceived him so many times similarly in the past.

It was half past eight and they had been sitting at the bus stop for more than two hours now. The best friend warned, “if you won’t ask her today, you won’t be able to say it ever again. And anyways, I’ve had enough, I’m leaving.” With this, the best friend picked his bike keys and got up, to go.

He pulled him by the arm, conveyed his heartfelt helplessness in a smile and finally, agreed to send her the message they had been arguing about.

More than a couple of agonizing minutes passed before the reply arrived. He read it, lowered his neck and chuckled silently. Then, making a sad face, told the best friend, “mana kar diya” (she refused).

Not believing a word, but still alarmed, the best friend grabbed the phone out of his hand, read the message and laughed heartily, “you scared me”. And then came & sat beside him as they both read the messages over again.

On October 22, 2006, at half past eight in the evening, from a bus stop at the Kasturba Gandhi Marg in New Delhi, waiting for bus no. 440, that would have taken him home, this boy-man asked the girl-woman he had realized he had fallen madly in love with, “I think I love you, would you like to spend the rest of your life with me.”

After those agonizingly long seconds that lasted more than minutes, she finally replied, “I think I do”.

And though he has tried today, he still has no words, he’ll never have, to describe what it was like. And what it has been like since.

p.s. you can read about the next day here or the enchanted months that followed here or here or maybe, here also. and to tell you more, it is on October 22, 2005, that this dreamweaver started his journey in the blogworld, with nothing but a single word in mind, delhidreams.