Dreamy conversations

Let’s assume that I, the writer, don’t know where and how this conversation actually took place. So now you, the reader, are free to imagine and create your own visions and images regarding this matter. Just assume there is a couple—a beautiful girl and a handsome boy. If you are a boy, just imagine you are that boy. If you are a girl, just imagine you are that girl. Now you are my character. This is your story. You already know what is going to happen in this story. Nevertheless, you want to read it. This is going to be a boring love story, and yet there is this vague underlying intense feeling that forces you to read it. So, now, you take a deep breath and being to read the story, titled Dreamy Conversations seriously. I, the writer, become happy to share with you this dreamy story.

She lives in the eastern part of the globe. He lives in the western part of the same globe. When she wakes up, the first thing she says to him is “Good night”. And before he closes his eyes to sleep, the last thing he says to her is “Good morning! And, have a good day”. When it’s time for her to sleep, she promises to meet him in her dream. And, the next day, they talk about their meeting in their respective dreams. She says she came to meet him in the form of the wind. He says he was standing outside the restaurant where he works just to feel her. He says he danced like crazy when the musical wind that carried her fragrance blew his long and silky hair. And in his dream, the boy goes to meet her in the form of food. She chews the food very slowly in her college canteen at break time and devours it fully as she can taste and smell the heady fragrance of his clean body in every bite.

She loves to eat. He loves to drink. She loves to sing. He loves to dance. She loves to read. He loves to write. They both love each other. They talk about love and life. She asks some profound questions regarding life and he ponders for a long time before he rep-lies. She is always satisfied with his answer. He answers in such a way that the questions dissolve on their own. When there are no more questions, there is no need for the answer as well. She tells him that he is her teacher. She requests him to be his ‘mind-guard’.

“If we were together, I would make you my body guard,” she says.

“Why would you take such a risk?” he says, “If there ever were to be an emergency, it would be you who would be protecting me. I know you are stronger than me, for you eat more than I do.”

She laughs like crazy. And, he joins her. And both of them laugh so hard that the birds sleeping in the branches of peepal trees wake up and flutter their wings in irritation. Some neighbours even mistake the laugher for a thunder storm and go out to check the sky.

Out of time

The cantankerous hubbub of people waiting in a queue for their turn to fill their vessels overwhelmed the surroundings. There were some who were cleaning their dishes and others who were washing their clothes. In front, a few women from the neighbourhood were arguing about someone cutting in line. Amidst the noise, clad in a simple faded dhoti, Khem Baaje with his long, wrinkled face walked toward the tap carrying a worn toothbrush with yellow bristles in his hand. He hated coming to the public tap for his daily chores but there was no other option. For the past three days there has been no water in the house he rented. The check valve on the boring pipe had broken; the tanks had all been empty since. The landlord had said it was Baaje’s sole responsibility to fix the pump and he wasn’t going to spend a dime on it. After filling the jug with pint of water he squatted on a nearby rock and started to brush his teeth. 
From the crowd a familiar voice yelled, “Baaje, congratulations! When is the party?”
Baaje’s head turned towards the direction of the yeller. As he had suspected, it was none other than Babu Raja, his next door neighbor.
Spitting foam Baje retorted, “What party?”
“Why, you don’t know? Yesterday’s news....Didn’t you watch TV?”
“My TV’s broken. What’s the news?”
“You are getting promoted. That’s what.” Baburaja said smugly.
“Are you kidding?” Baje spoke with his brows furrowed.
“No, I am not. The government has decreed that all government employees who have been serving in the same post for over fifteen years will be automatically promoted. The ordinance has been signed by the president.”Babu Raja replied with a grin.
Baje couldn’t believe his ears. He had heard similar rumour swirling a few years ago but there had been no such indication lately. He had stopped hoping. But now, suddenly, his heartbeat quickened. A rush of ecstasy as well as doubt over took him; his temples throbbed in the excitement. Babu Raja’s words had come as a shock. Meanwhile, the others in the crowd who had overheard the conversation also joined in and yelled “Congratulations!” Unable to react rationally he got up and rinsed his mouth immediately.
“This better not be a joke. Because if it is then it’s very cruel.”
“Why the hell would I be joking? It’s in today’s newspaper as well,” Babu Raja exclaimed.

Vanishing

I turned seventeen last month. My temples greyed; a black halo formed around the lower half of my face and started to grow. The smudge of black below my nose darkened—I got my present without celebrating my day.

That day or perhaps some other day saw me taking an empty tempo—one of many such wonders that circumnavigated a small portion of the expansive and labyrinthine city. The body of the tempo was enamel white, with parallel streaks of blue slathered over like suntan. Overcast as it was, the day waded slowly through the square-shaped hole it had for a window, through with also came in dust, remnants of arid roads that beckoned for spring to arrive.

The rear-view mirror reflected a chin sporting a stubble that was only a few days old, a pair of eyes that seemed to have drunk the red from the lids, an aquiline nose, and lips that were an equal number of shades away from the pink of a blush—or of two daubs of rouge—and the black of anthracite. Silence hung like an enormous beast, breathing heavily and rarefying the atmosphere. Only after a long while—punctuated by jarring glances exchanged through the mirror and the clanking shut of the stained glass that framed the windows—did another passenger, a young kid, come in. He took the seat across from me, and it bothered me that the game of noticing somebody noticing you had resumed. The silence felt more tangible all of a sudden.

Out of the larger gap that was the door people got on and off from, the landscape continually changed: The buildings nearest got small, and the further ones got smaller; the road reflected the sky and took on the over-clouded pewter hue. It seemed endless; it provided more of itself to compensate for every small part of it the vehicle overcame.

The boy sitting opposite me thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and fished out a thin roll of money, the outer layer of which was a five-rupee note—an outcome of similarly silent and fidgety rides, I thought. He moved a seat closer to the driver, and asked that he stop the vehicle. Ten rupees, the driver said, and the boy handed his neat roll of money before getting off and heading to the left of the road where, upon seeing a lorry reversing in his direction, he stopped and waited for it to pass.

A sullen sun appeared somewhere, and the dust still rose.

Dreams

What is our elixir of love? Well, it is just plain brewed coffee but maybe I call it so because as I drink in its aroma before taking an actual sip, all those twinkling little stars in the purple-black sky appear to be meticulously placed romantic, burning.
If you sneak to the roof of our home, somewhere towards the corner you will come across a wooden bench. There is nothing extraordinary about it except for the fact that it is extremely old. So old that it screams in protest every time we sit on it. But it means a lot to us all the same for this is where we sip our elixir of love each night and fall for each other a little more. What is our elixir of love? Well, it is just plain brewed coffee but maybe I call it so because as I drink in its aroma before taking an actual sip, all those twinkling little stars in the purple-black sky appear to be meticulously placed romantic, burning candles—just the wrong shade; or maybe because as I drink it, I yearn to touch his lovely black curls even more. But then he calls me his Silly Darling Angel whenever I list these reasons so maybe I do it for I love being called so.

“Jimmy, put me down!” I protest with a giggle as he carries me down the stairs. He manages to carry the empty coffee mugs too making it even more urgent for me to ask him to put me down. “I’m a strong man you know,” he replies faking a hurt face. I laugh and repeat, “Of course. A strong man.” “Why. You doubt it, girl?” he mimics a villain’s angry voice and drawls, “Maybee then I’ll just let go of you and take pleeeasure in watching you tumble down the stairs slooowly and hit the wall as your faaace turns riiich crimson with warm blooood…” I fake a disgusted face and snap, “Mr Villain, stop being so morbid!” and at this both of us laugh….

Hello! This is Alex Destiny. Jimmy is my husband and I am his oasis in the desert. But I guess you already know how much in love we are so I’ll just skip that part. (Laugh) Other things that you should know about me: I have been happily married for two years now. I majored in Human Psychology and know my job pretty well but then I am a homebody through and through. So you will find me-At home. And…I have a knack for attracting nightmares... They come to me in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they haunt me for days but I live through it. After all, I have Jimmy! (Smile)

I.

The ache in the upper midsection of my body is so profound; each atom there must be sizzling in some very concentrated acid. To breathe love, eat love and talk love is to live in the realm of fantasy and this right now is my reality check.

Changing the world

This is what the alarm clock tells me every morning, “Ting, ting, ting”. It’s strange that I understand the languages of things that do not speak. This translates to, “Wake up, another day, today is the day.”

I remember how my elders used to shower me with all those blessing during Dashain. Words are clear “Babu, Thulo manche Bhae” (May you be a big mans, my son). May be I was too small back then. If it were now I surely would have asked ‘How big?’ But that small boy picked up a new notion or an obsession if you’d prefer to call it that. If you got to be big, you got to make changes. This was imprinted on my delicate brain and at times it leaves me miserable. It is as if the great statues had handed the task over to me, “You’ve got to change the world.”

This enclosed cell is my laboratory. No one dares disturb me here. Not even a cell phone. No texts; no missed calls, nothing. I have been liberated, since that last text message that came a few months ago. The text read, “I am sorry. I am in love with someone else. Take care”. This is what happens when you don’t take a girl to bed with you and insist on building a so-called ‘future’ with her. Frivolities don’t entertain me. If something compromises on consistency, it deserves to be eliminated. But who cares about her or those occasional shows she often sets up. It’s ‘the world’ that needs prioritizing.

I have grown fond of bitterness. No sugar in my coffee. I am habituating myself to the taste. I sip the bitter coffee but still enjoy its aroma. I have learned that it is how the entire process works. With every gulp I prepare myself for my mission—Change the world. My clock has already said, “Today is the day.” I need to do this. The challenge is right outside the door. Just a step and my duty will begin. This has to be me. I am. The world will change.

In love, again

It felt good this time, like it had at times that came before this. In fact, it always feels good to be in love. This time, not unlike on earlier occasions, it felt as if it were different. All my previously experiences had made me feel the same way. ‘This time,’ I had always said to myself, ‘it is different’.

Different. This was how it really was this time around though. The feeling, though fleeting, was refreshing, something very unlike anything that I had experienced before. The person I fell for this time was ideal for me, or at least that was how I felt when it first began.

I met her at a book launch, which she was coordinating. It was serendipitous, the way I simply happened to cross her path. I had decided to attend the event, I could as easily have chosen to skip the event altogether. But I did, eventually, and when I got there she was talking to groups of people who had gotten there before me, engaging in chit chat, politely socialising before the official launch began.

She had looked nice in that black dress of hers. She had duly caught my attention. Our eyes had met in due time, and for a moment, I had been unable to take mine off of hers.

But I am an introvert, and for all my effort, I couldn’t approach her, even for a short conversation, a casual sharing of pleasantries. She had been a stranger to me then.

Uncertainties

When her father smiled and said, “You are a lucky girl” Laxmi was surprised. She did not know he had arranged her marriage with Ram, a man in his early 40s with a tailoring business in the village market in Kavre and with some land in the village. Laxmi had just turned 14 then, and had gone up to the fourth grade in the village school. She was tall and beautiful; people in the village thought that given her beauty, it was her bad luck to have been born into a poor Dalit family.

Laxmi did not resist the marriage. She thought “one has to simply marry”. After two years, she gave birth to a son, Sunil. She started spending more time in the shop as Ram had to go to Kathmandu to buy cloth and fabric. Sometimes, she too wanted to go to Kathmandu, but her husband never took her. She did not complain. ‘I am spared the hard work other women in the village have to do,’ she would think. Nevertheless, she felt deprived when she saw youngsters going to school. She desired to be a school-teacher in the village.

Ram’s frequent visits to Kathmandu got him used to urban amenities—expensive alcohol and nice dresses, among other things, and he began despising life in the village market. He sold his shop and a part of his land to buy a small tailoring shop in Kathmandu’s tourist centre, Thamel. The family lived in the backroom. Laxmi had initially not wanted to come to Kathmandu, but the thought of sending Sunil to a school in the city had lured here to the capital. She had transferred her own desire to study onto Sunil, who was soon admitted to a government school.

Laxmi started to worry about Ram’s increased consumption of alcohol while Ram kept her locked up, jealously guarding his beautiful wife. He started beating her, and forced her to work as a dishwasher at a local hotel. The only solace Laxmi found was in her son; the two shared a bond that grew stronger each day.

Autumn leaves

Have you ever seen a leaf fall off a tree? You probably have. But have you seen a bud on a branch curling out, gradually, into a green leaf? 'Green' is an understatement here. The variations in the hues of green a single leaf is composed of are mind-boggling. First, it's this very light green, sprouting out of nowhere. The green is sometimes pigmented with white. Then it changes its colour to a dark, clear green with distinct veins and nodules, the kind you draw when you are in kindergarten. And just when you think the green is there to stay and calm your nerves, it changes into another shade of green--the shade which I find less calm. The full, swollen leaf then slowly curls back until the green turns into a sadder brown. And then, just like a hard-to-mend cassette player that quietly leaves its favourite spot in your room, the leaf too bids adieu as the soft wind tickles its over-grown veins and nodules. It finally falls down gracefully with a gentle prod by the same whooshing wind and joins the multitude of dark-brown, decaying leaves on the ground.

Quite a botanical description it was, I must say. Now, I ask you again. Have you seen a leaf sprout off a branch? Have you seen it flaunt all shades of green and brown, and fall off the branch without ever making a thumping sound? I guess not. I have. I have witnessed the whole orchestrated fall of leaves--these autumn leaves which, like a well-harmonised orchestra, spring out of the curtains at one point and hide behind those thick curtains at another. The only difference is that the drawing off of the curtains in an orchestra is followed by thunderous applause, while the fall of the autumn leaves is pierced by a silence, deep and cold silence.

So much for sharing experiences

Krish sighed as he ran through a narrow alley. He was getting late for his appointment and to make matters worse, his new shoes were covered in mud; it had rained the previous night and the alley was full of little puddles that his feet kept getting stuck in. The kids would be really angry at him. Why wouldn’t they? They had paid to hear his stories and he kept getting late. They were impressionable pre-adolescents and he knew he had made a bad impression. All the he could hope for now was that the kids would forgive him; the last time he was late, he had gotten ice cream for all of them. His pockets had become empty and even now he cringed at how light his pockets felt.

So lost in his thoughts was Krish that he almost passed by his office. Cursing his wayward mind, he scrambled up the stairs and burst into his room. “You’re late!” was the first word he heard as he was pelted with empty Tiffin boxes and water bottles by twenty angry twelve year olds. “Calm down kids, I’m not that late! It’s just five minutes past the appointed time!” pleaded Krish as he took cover behind his office desk. After twenty seconds, he nervously stepped out of the protection his desk offered and made a calming gesture at the kids. Twenty pointed glares were the reply. If looks could kill, Krish would have been a dead man. ‘Why did I even start this thing?’ he lamented in his mind as he searched for a way to reduce the kids’ ire. An idea made its way into his mind and smiled at his own brilliance. Yes, this idea would work.

“Kids, all I do here is tell you some of my stories to get you interested in literature. Let’s do something different today. How about I share one of my experiences from my school days?” offered Krish as he observed the kids’ reaction. He almost performed a mini-jig as he saw the kids react positively to his proposal. “Well, what are you waiting for? Do we have to tell you when to start?” questioned Akash, a particularly sarcastic boy whose face was covered with pimples. Krish frowned at the question. Sometimes he really hated his job. It wasn’t something he had to do either; he could live a comfortable life off of the royalties he got from his books. It was his desire to contribute to the society that had led him to come up with a most peculiar method of contributing to society; he would tell stories to young kids in the hopes of getting them interested in literature. He had kept the fees to a minimum in order to get maximum participation from the people in the society. His decision had become the cause of many sleepless nights. A loud cough from Akash interrupted his chain of thought. A blush appeared on his face as he saw 20 pairs of eyes staring at him. Krish cleared his throat and began narrating a particularly interesting experience from school.

Back from hell

Something moves on the pyre. The few chunks of wood that have been laid over the body fall to the ground. As the very air begins to chill, the dead body awakens. Revived and living, it sits up on the pyre, breathing calmly.
People are passing by the bridge at Aryaghat. A group of malami have just lifted a body off their shoulders.

They soon build up a pyre and lay the body upon it. The only thing delaying the cremation is the dead boy’s father. He is yet to reach Aryaghat. He had left the Capital for Pokhara the day before.

When the father arrives, he is visibly moved by the loss of his son. The body, which is about to be cremated according to Hindu ritual, had belonged to a boy who’d died the night before.

Something moves on the pyre. The few chunks of wood that have been laid over the body fall to the ground. As the very air begins to chill, the dead body awakens. Revived and living, it sits up on the pyre, breathing calmly. The body wakes up as if the day were its first on earth.

But a vague sadness falls on the boy’s face as he looks at his wrist. “My hand! My hand! Help me, please!” he starts pleading.

His mother falls to the ground unconscious while Amar, who has strangely ‘resumed’ life, continues shouting. “Somebody please take me to the hospital,” he screams.

Nobody has the slightest idea what is going on. All, understandably, have been taken aback. No one has the courage to properly look at, much less say something, to Amar. His brother, Ashok, somehow manages to address him, “Are you really alive?”

The Artist


I am sitting quietly on my wooden rocker. The sound of the wind astounds me as I watch the stars, just emerging as if in mystic troops above me, in the rose-purple sky. From here, I can see the horizon clearly; shades of orange, pink and violet appear as beautiful as a painting created by a masterful artist, an artist who lives behind those cavernous cliffs, up on the ethereal clouds.

The artist has managed to meticulously clash all these beautiful colours—one against the other, almost opposites shades in the spectrum—to create the perfect image of dusk; the kind in which light blends into darkness creating ‘the dawn of the night’ as some call it. I have known people who have believed that each day is special, a creation of his divine hands, crafted into existence on leisurely afternoons. I have known people who have worshipped the artist for all the splendour he’s bestowed upon our world, and those who have always believed the artist hides in his mythological abode, invisible to all, their only reverence to him being their belief in his existence.

I too have known an artist, very much unlike the one who paints the sky and fuels the sun. I have known an artist whose words don’t rhyme at all. I have known he who doesn’t know art and has no secret hideout. He is a dreamer and his dreams are all masterpieces, unleashed, one after another, in the gallery of his mind. He is my artist; the solemn deity I worship.

The alley

The line, as always, was serpentine. The evening rush hour traffic made things worse. Luckily, a seat next to the spot where I’d been standing on the crowded bus got empty. Perhaps the occupant decided it would be better to walk. Perhaps the thought was in the mind of every other person inside the smelly, overcrowded, claustrophobic bus.

No sooner had I sat down that I dozed off. I woke up as the bus came to a screeching halt knocking my glasses off the bridge of m nose. Luckily, they didn’t break. That would have been equal to a curse for someone like me; I’m blind as a bat without my spectacles.

I looked at my watch and realised I had slept for a full 15 minutes. I then looked outside and, to my horror, realised that the bus had moved just a few metres. The traffic seemed never ending. Perhaps one of our so-called leaders was out on an evening drive and had brought along with entourage of police escorts. Why do they need the police? What are they afraid of? I mean they have criminals for bodyguards, why do they need extra protection?

“Bloody freeloaders,” I murmured and got off the bus.

I was walking down the road, my mind full of endless thoughts, when it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The alley.

I had seen the path countless times while commuting but had never actually taken it. It was about 200 or so metres long and paved with bricks. There were tall builds standing on both sides and there was barely enough space for two people to walk side by side on it. Even during the day, it looked pitch dark from the distance. I could just make out the outlines of a few trees at the end of it; it was a sight familiar to me. My home was a few minutes’ walk from the park. The alley but the walking distance to my home by more than half and yet I had never taken it.

Motti didi ko bhatti

Motti didi’s soup was to die for, and so was her 15-year-old daughter. Drivers and khalasis would slurp the soup while drooling over the daughter. She was ripening and she was glowing
Motti didi’s bhatti, which was in the north corner of Lagankhel buspark, had quite a reputation. After around 1 pm everyday, microbus drivers and khalasis would crowd into her bhatti to gobble down momo, choyala, thukpa, chowmein and a very special soup. Usually, her customers would hang around till 11 at night drinking tongba, eating momo and gulping down her soup.

Motti didi’s soup was to die for, and so was her 15-year-old daughter. Drivers and khalasis would slurp the soup while drooling over the daughter. She was ripening and she was glowing. The drivers would try to flirt with her, cautiously though, because they were a bit afraid of Motti didi.

Man Bahadur had been driving a microbus for around three years now. Full of hopes and dreams, he and his wife had come to Kathmandu five years ago. He’d worked in a garage for some time, then worked as a khalasi in a bus, until a lucky break had given him a chance to work as a microbus driver. He loved the work. He loved driving his microbus from Lagankhel to Ratnapark and back to Lagankhel. He also loved Motti didi’s daughter.

He would dream about her while driving, humming along with the dohori songs that blared out from the Chinese speakers on his dashboard. Every second, he fantasised about her. A feeble guilt would pinch his heart, but she was so ripe, and he had to be the first to taste her. He would enter the bhatti after each round, just to see her, just to smell her. She would serve him the soup, a bit shyly, a bit flirtingly. Man Bahadur was sure that she was giving him ‘the lift’. Motti didi too didn’t mind Man Bahadur’s frequent visits to her place.

Lonliness

Time and circumstance separated us, and it was at the moment of our separation that I realised I had no control over my life. Life has its own way, its own flow and rhythm. We are nothing but instruments to time.Loneliness is eating away at me. We are meeting after a gap of two years.
Time and circumstance separated us, and it was at the moment of our separation that I realised I had no control over my life. Life has its own way, its own flow and rhythm. We are nothing but instruments to time. It fulfils its motives through us. We are all marionettes; time is the puppet master. If conscious choice existed and I had control of life, I would never have introduced separation to the lives of newlyweds. We are only slaves of time and circumstance, though, and if we accept this fact and go on with life, we become happy slaves. If we do not, nothing works as we imagine them to work and we end up unhappy slaves. And so I accepted my separation from my wife and became a happy slave.

Since then, I have always been vaguely aware that I must never try to alter the course of time; it will only cause misery and chaos. Life will be more peaceful otherwise. The separation from my wife also taught me what words like 'acceptance' and 'surrender' really mean.

“You look sad...and you seem to have lost weight. Is everything okay?” she asked me when we finally saw each other, after two years, in our living room.

“Loneliness is eating away at me," I said, in a stifled voice and gave her a warm hug."

“You needn't worry now that I'm here," she said encouragingly. She stroked my hair and patted my back.

I nodded my head, and without another word went outside to the veranda where I needed to spend time with myself.

Rainbow above the house

As a child Pareet loved to eat, especially dairy products. He was also very fond of rainbows
It is already 3 pm and Pareet has not eaten anything. On his way back from the hospital he is thinking of the good food—cheese pizza, fried rice and tomato pickle—that he had last night but is not able to decide what to eat today. As he enters his house, his eyes suddenly land on the old sketch that has been hanging on the wall of his sitting room for the past three years.

This picture has sentimental value for Pareet. He takes a moment to look at the picture carefully and as he does this, he is definitely not aware of his hunger. He closes his eyes and lets the beautiful bygone moments attached to this old sketch unfold.

•••
Pareet grew up in a middleclass family. His parents could not provide all he wanted as a child but they certainly did their best. As a child, Pareet loved to eat, especially dairy products. He was also very fond of rainbows.

When he was six, he had asked his mother, “When will we get a rainbow above our house?”

Musings of an ex-rebel

It rains daily now. Business is slow and there is nothing to do for him except sit and ruminate, inside his shack of a hotel by the earthen roadside. “The rains came earlier this time. It’s all due to climate change, gift from capitalism to the world,” he thinks to himself. Slurping the hot milk tea, he plunges into nostalgia.

The rebels had stopped at his village, en-route to Rukum. Their cultural troupe had performed revolutionary songs, dramas and dances on the school ground. His home had been selected as the place that would shelter the platoon commander for the night. They were supposed to leave early in the morning.

The commander asked his father to tune into radio Nepal for the seven o’clock news broadcast. The rebels listened to the news gravely, in pin-drop silence. There was no news of fighting and death that night. The news programme was soon over and food was served. At around eight they finished eating. They washed the dishes themselves. Some of them went out to stand sentry while others settled down for a discussion. The commander struck up a conversation with his father.

He was an old retired Indian Army man. He had had his share of ups and downs in life. Though not highly educated, he was a smart and experienced person. However, he did not understand politics; rather, he was not interested in it. Being a lahure had been lucrative and practical in his time but not anymore. He knew that education was the only means of getting up in the world and wanted to educate his two sons, as far as possible. He didn’t feel the same responsibility towards his two daughters. They had got enough education to find able husbands and were both already married.

Three thousand kilometres

Adi looked sideways in slight disgust upon being summoned by his childhood nickname. The first thing he saw were the hazel eyes
Adi’s eyes grew wide as his eardrums were hit by these words. “300 kilometres?” he asked himself. It wasn’t the intangible weight of the words that hit him hard, but the very tangible distance of the journey he was about to take that made his round face look swollen. He tried to eavesdrop on people’s conversations half expecting that the number was incorrect. To his utter dismay, the number he had overheard was correct to its very last numeral. Did they even know how long 300 kilometres is, he wondered. Did they know that it would take eight hours for the bus to cover the distance? No, eight hours and 20 minutes, he corrected himself after some swift calculation.

Adi then contemplated his hasty decision to take a road trip, to hop in any bus he could spot and ride along on a journey that could take him anywhere. He knew it was very unlike him to act in haste when all his life he had calculated everything meticulously. Even as a child, he had followed dragonflies with such pertinence that had defied even the most calculative insects’ tactics. And when all of his friends would be still be aimlessly chasing the zig-zag curves made by dragonflies in flight, he would have a bottle full of bright yellow and brown and red. Although the bottle and the buzz of dragonflies had long been replaced with piles of papers and theories of atomic physics, the meticulous pertinence had stayed with him.

Flirting with fractions

One-eighth of me, or maybe a tenth, is acutely aware of the approximately 22 inches that separate your shoulder and mine. One casual shift later, I'm four inches closer. I can always just blame it on your magnetic force pulling me in.

One or two-fifths of me is analyzing your body language subtly. Have you inched closer to me, or is it just my wishful imagination? Oh I'm simply an academically inclined girl, dull next to your golden shine. The odds are not in my favour. Or maybe just a tenth of it is.

At least one-fourth of me is wishing something would happen already. There's a fair probability that all this waiting will amount to nothing. Is this all just a waste of time? I wonder. I hesitate to hypothesize.

A good third of me is now close to hyperventilating. Your arm is brushing mine. Either you moved closer or I did. It could be both. It better be. Only I don’t want to come up as desperate.

An eventful day

Rajiv and I were of a similar age and both of us had not faced a situation such as this one before. Yet, I could understand how he might have been feeling. Choosing to stay silent, I ambled to kitchen and boiled water for tea.
I was in the garden basking in the winter sun when I saw Rajiv barge in, his countenance giving an impression that suggested he was furious. He slammed the door before disappearing inside the house. I tried to think of what might have happened to upset him at this time in the morning. But my ruminations could not persist for long as I went back to enjoying the sun soon after, especially now that it was getting warmer with each passing minute. A while later though, I decided to go inside and check what was the matter with Rajiv, my friend and my roommate for the last few years.

“What is the matter?” I asked.
He was still fuming. He did not say a word and kept looking down at the floor.

“What is with you?” I continued to ask, intrigued by the sudden burst of anger, and started to flip through a daily newspaper, left a while ago by a local distributor.

“My mother is getting married,” he said after a brief hiatus. The confession nearly shocked me as I diverted my attention to Rajiv. I couldn’t think of any right, proper words I could use at the precise moment to communicate with him, and hence waited for Rajiv to resume the talk.

For the membership badge

Tap tap, tap-tap-tap.
Mr Bajaj used to assign to us an elegant timing that defined a special breed of clap. “It’s called the scout’s punch clap,” he would say. “When times aren’t in your favour, when you need someone to cover your back, go for punch claps. Remember, if you clap this way, help will arrive in no time.”

On the first bench in class, I wondered what kind of ‘help’ he meant. Still, I clapped. I sang scout songs to the beat. I danced. I coiled ropes. I volunteered. I became a scout. All of us did. Because initially, everyone had been interested in attending his classes. With time, however, the interest waned sharply.

Scouting was funny business. It could be interesting and intimidating, both at the same time. Interesting, because outdoorsy events are always fun to learn. Intimidating and funny, because while Baden Powel had received countless medals of honour, we mostly earned cuts and bruises; one or two proficiency badges at most. Those and a copper woggle to insert the two tips of our rolled scarves in.

And in that duration, I was nearly murdered on a commando bridge. Our instructor had mentioned the rope could carry only one ropewalker at a time. It was tied with reef knots between two trees, and once you were on it, you were 20 feet in the air. When my turn came, Mr Bajaj realised—all of a sudden—that reef knots weren’t reliable at all. He untied the rope first and then tied a thief knot in its place. “You’re next. Be prepared,” he pointed at me.

The moment I put my boots on that rope, the world went kaput. I felt like a turbulent aeroplane in dog fight. The next thing I remember is lying on a hospital bed. They had pierced me with stainless steel needles at so many different points and angles that I felt like pincushion in many ways. A nurse came in every three hours or so to inject vials of pain killers which never relieved any pain. Mr Bajaj’s confusion between the reef knot and the thief knot had left me crippled for two months.