And it seemed that their dance was endless, that for eternal time they would remain immersed in the beatings of each other’s hearts, that not even hapless pain could stop the two of them from being together with each other.
But then, the boy’s eyes fell upon Raghuvir and Anoothi and at once, the scent of love which was suffusing his surroundings turned in to that of anxiety.
And now his heart fluttered even more, as he saw the two of them coming towards him.
“H..hey..professor..hello Miss Rai,” he greeted them with a nervous stammer.
“Why Kamal, what are you doing here? And who is this lucky girl with you?” Anoothi asked, the girl still being in Kamal’s arms had her back turned to them.
“Girl..which...girl..?” And Kamal was literally trying to press the face of his date in to his chest in order to prevent any chance of his colleagues having a glimpse of who she was.
“The girl with you of course, stop acting like some dimwit,” Anoothi reprimanded him, Kamal’s silly behavior making her more inquisitive about the identity of the girl.
“I am not some dimwit,” he protested. He was feeling like the last standing soldier of a defeated army, desperately trying to hold his ground in the trenches while being under heavy artillery fire from an indomitable enemy.
“Stop it now you,” Anoothi shot back with a distasteful frown.
“Come on man, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, you are out on a date here, you have not committed a burglary,” Raghuvir tried to assuage him, there was nothing wrong in a man spending a romantic evening with a woman, he himself had come here in anticipation of something similar before the whole breasts saga had put an embargo on all things amorous.
“What date? There’s no date,” Kamal stressed again but seeing her man continuing to make a fool out of himself prompted the girl to separate herself from him and turn around to face the intruders.
“Good..evening..Ma’am,” the short statured girl greeted Anoothi meekly and formally, her dusky eyes lowered in embarrassment.
“I cannot believe it!” Anoothi gasped, and looked at Kamal with even sharper disdain. “You have been dating Kritika! Have you gone completely nuts Kamal?” she reproofed, before turning her eyes to the girl. “And what is up with you? Last I knew you; you used to be an intelligent girl.”
Raghuvir who was at first feeling somewhat baffled about the belligerent disposition Anoothi had adopted towards the couple, now after having gotten a better look at the girl’s countenance, recalled her as being the same person he had seen in all those video clippings on Kamal’s YouTube channel and therefore acquired a clearer understanding of why Anoothi was acting the way she did.
“But Ma’am..it was just ..it was..” the girl was thrown in to a fit of discomfiture at being scolded by her favorite teacher, and so that stumbling tongue of hers, could barely speak out any words of explanation whatsoever.
“It was what? You lost your all good sense and decided to date one of the faculty members of the very college in which you study,” Anoothi repined.
“Well, technically,” Trying to shield her darling from the harsh spotlight, it was her techie boyfriend who jumped in. “She is not a student but a ‘former’ student of our college, since she already graduated a couple of months ago,” he said with an innocent grin.
“Well then..I see nothing wrong with that,” Raghuvir put in, only for Anoothi to turn her disapproving eyes towards him. “I am only saying, they have not technically broken the teacher-student code,” he added with a hesitant shrug of his shoulders.
“What about you? You want to hide behind that technicality too?” Anoothi asked the young girl, to which the hapless creature just nodded her head. Her response elicited out of the history professor a long sigh of resignation. “Okay then, as long as the code is not broken, I guess I have no problem with it. I will leave you guys to enjoy your evening,” And so she turned away and walked off to her table. Raghuvir too followed her after giving Kamal a consolatory pat on his shoulders.
“You want to order some coffee now?” Anoothi asked, as Raghuvir returned.
“I think its best we do,” he agreed, calling one of the waiters nearby and placing their order with him.
Meanwhile, Kamal and Kritika too had taken a table for themselves, and not surprisingly they had chosen one which was as far away as it was possible for it to be from that of Raghuvir and Anoothi’s.
“So, you believe in the code?” Raghuvir would ask after a little while, when they had begun to partake of the delicious coffee.
“Firmly. You don’t?” Anoothi inquired, raising a brow.
“No..No I do,” he quickly explained, not wanting to get in to another fracas with her. “Though I have seen it getting breached, plenty of times,” he added.
“You don’t say!” she exclaimed, a little surprised.
“It’s one of the advantages of being a nomad. You get to see the world in all of its different shades,” Raghuvir spoke in a sincere voice.
“Well I never broke it. When I first started teaching, I was only 23 and I had some..offers. But I stood my ground,” she revealed. .
“And boy how you regret it now,” Raghuvir quipped and broke in to a chuckle. He knew he was treading dangerous ground but he had not been able to help himself. Luckily for him, it was one of those rare occasions when Anoothi understood a joke, and rather ended up joining him in the mirth.
The evening afterwards, stayed convivial, the delicious coffee and the delightful chocolate pastries of the café improving the moods of one and all alike with the warm informal ambience of the place coalescing to keep it that way, so that by the end of their respective trysts, both couples present there were having a good time to themselves.
Kamal and Kritika had gone back to dancing while Raghuvir and Anoothi were standing at the parapet, looking at the splendor of the market in the street below while sharing quirky anecdotes with each other.
“For some 20 minutes he chased us all over town like a madman. Never again did me or any of my friends throw another water balloon at a rickshaw wala,” revealed Anoothi with a stifled chuckle.
“Well I have a water balloon one too. But we did not attack no Rickshaw wala, no Ma’am, we did something much more foolish. It was a wedding procession, everyone dressed in brand new sparkly clothes and we assailed them with balloons full of colored water. Looking back, it was sort of a mean thing to do, but as kids we did not know any better.”
“Well talking of wedding procession, there was one passing in front of Aunt Rosa’s shop one day. During that time, a man worked there, Happy Uncle we all called him. Anyhow, as this procession was passing, there were a couple of guys in there holding whiskey bottles, pouring glasses of it for anyone in the procession wanting to indulge in a little alcohol. Happy Uncle on noticing that picked up a steel glass from the shop, rushed in to that procession, and gulled one of these men in to filling up his glass with whiskey. We were all present there at that time and had quite a laugh about it.”
“Why don’t you tell him about Happy Uncle’s palm scratching adventures?” interjected a voice from behind, and as Anoothi and Raghuvir turned to look, it was Kamal and Kritika who were standing there.
“I guess…it’s best you tell him yourself,” Anoothi replied softly, her voice having relinquished its earlier pugnacity.
“Well this tale goes back to the time when Happy Uncle used to work at a bangles’ shop in his younger days. The young Happy Uncle was at most times surrounded by beautiful lady customers who came to the shop out of their fondness for the colorful bangles. But unfortunately he found himself unable to flirt with any of them lest he ended up inviting the ire of the shop owner. So he invented the most ingenious, the most cunning method of romancing the history of human civilization has seen…” Kamal paused for some dramatic effect before going on. “At those times, glass bangles were in vogue and the thing about glass bangles was…” Kamal turned his eyes to Anoothi,
giving her the cue to take over the narration momentarily.
“The thing about glass bangles was that you could not get them on yourself. If you tried, more often than not you ended up breaking a couple as you tried to slip them over your hand,” Anoothi thus edified, before returning the task of the narration to Kamal.
“So salesmen those days, at the time of selling these bangles, also helped the ladies in getting them on. Our Happy Uncle learned this art and after that, while he would be holding a young woman’s hand and slipping on her bangles, he would furtively give her a little scratch on her palm. If she would flinch or grimace, he would stop at once, but if the maiden blushed or smiled, then…” And here he stopped, letting a naughty wink finish his anecdote for him.
“Well I guess I best be going now, getting a little late for me,” Anoothi announced, looking at her watch. “Any of you need a lift?”
“Well actually Ma’am, I am leaving tonight for Shimla,” It was Kritika who spoke; the dusky young girl was apparently not harboring even the faintest of acrimony towards her teacher despite her earlier rancid behavior. “I got an admission in a college there for my Masters. My bus leaves in half an hour. It would be really great if you could come with us and see me off,” humbly, she requested.
“Yes of course,” Anoothi gave her acquiescence at once, as the night had passed, she had been feeling a little guilty about the rash impulsiveness with which she had reacted upon seeing her favorite student in the arms of one of her colleagues, and so was now somewhat relieved to notice that the young girl had not developed any ill sentiments towards her because of that.
And thus the four of them left the homely confines of the Eat N Treat and made their way to Ludhiana’s bus stand, where on Terminal 4, they came across the Volvo in which Kritika was to leave for the hilly town.
After exchanging some emotional hugs and kisses with her boyfriend at the terminal itself, she also came and embraced Anoothi. “Thank you Ma’am, for all that you taught me.” And with that final expression of gratitude towards an erstwhile teacher, she boarded the bus, which was going to take her towards her future, a little part of which was going to have huge reverberations for the life of one of the three she had left behind in her wake.
*******
A bare and withered Amaltas, its branches frail and its wizened trunk beset by rot, its vitality sapped and its life force fast abandoning it, lone it stood on a road side, its silhouette in the night providing the most haunting and gloomiest of sights to any passerby.
Not far from this crumbling macabre, was the ghostess of love Neha, staring at it with a look of grave concern in her eyes.
“In the name of the High and the Low Seas, how did things come to this!” mumbled the ghostess as she approached the decaying tree. When she came nearer, she saw the one in whose search she had come here. With his shrunken form laid upon one of the branches and with his pale spiritless eyes gazing tiredly at the stars above, he looked to be in no better condition than the Amaltas.
Neha grew even more worried as she noticed this, though she remembered Arjun to always have had a morose and shabby look about him, she had never seen him in such a weak and decrepit state, he looked akin to some human who had been suffering from some kind of a severe and protracted ailment. But ghosts were supposed to be wholly immune to all mortal diseases, weren’t they?
She resolved that she must try and have a talk with him about what was going on, and towards that purpose, she approached him while he still lay upon that branch.
“Hey, how are you?” she greeted him, her voice cordial.
“W..What are you doing here?” Arjun was a bit flummoxed as the image of Neha appeared all of a sudden above him, disturbing him in his listless star gazing. “What are you doing here?” he asked once again, sounding a little peeved.
“I was just passing by and thought I come and say hi,” She answered.
“Oh, but you never came by and said hi before,” he sneered. “Why don’t you get to the point of why you are here?”
“Well, okay,” she sighed, and paused to gather her composure. “I heard that you were hanging out with that rogue Vichitrasen and his touts; so naturally I grew a little concerned about you. And now I come here and see you like this, all weak and shriveled up, really Arjun, what is going on?”
“Oh so you are concerned about me, huh?” he dismissed her phony cares with a bitter scoff, his eyes holding nothing but contempt for her. “I should have guessed, Little Miss Oh so Righteous and Proper was always going to have a problem with anyone being friends with anyone she does not approve of,” he said with a sardonic chuckle, the hollows of his cheeks giving a morbid quality to the whole thing.
“Hey I did not come here to be insulted,” Neha protested, miffed by his behavior. “I know we have not been friends, but that is no reason for you to treat me with such disdain. I was just worried about you,” she reiterated, struggling to keep her patience from running out.
“Well you need not worry about me, or come here and advise me. I can decide myself what is good for me and what is bad for me,” Arjun waved her away with his bony hand.
“Yeah it seems you been doing a mighty fine job at it lately,” She retorted. Why it was that a foolish head always had to be a bitter and blind one too?
“Yeah, whatever, so why are you not on your way yet?” he asked mockingly.
Neha said no more and with a sympathizing grimace (for sympathy was her proclivity) she flew away, leaving Arjun to go back to his star gazing, in what was one of the few remaining nights of his ethereal existence.
******
6
The overnight bus journey had Kritika reach Shimla just as dawn was breaking over the hilly town. Stepping out of the Volvo, she was immediately enthralled by the beauty of the morning in those scenic surroundings. Up above, the sky was covered in a canopy of white clouds, while down below, the roads were glistening from the intermittent overnight drizzle, the freshness of the air was a refreshing contrast to the perpetual polluted atmosphere of the place she had come from, and as far as her eyes could see there were Pine and Deodar trees, swaying in the whispering winds and sparkling in the nurturing dew, rendering to the whole vista a picturesque beauty. As she walked down a narrow pedestrian path cut out along the edge of the mountain, she saw on one side of her the vast expanse of the surrounding hills while on the other, beyond the road were some of the buildings of the town designed in neo-gothic and tudorbethan architecture, a throwback to the British times when Shimla used to be the summer capital of the country.
As Kritika walked further on that pathway, dragging her suitcase with her, the prevalent chill in the air caused her to stop every now and then to rub her shoulders, and after doing it a few times, she finally gave in to it, as she got out one of her sweaters from the suitcase and threw it on. A few more steps and she came across a roadside tea vendor, certainly a steaming hot cup of the beverage was an enticing proposition in this weather, and Kritika wasted no time in buying herself some of it. A little ahead she found herself a wooden bench, and after wiping off the glossy water droplets that were adorning its seat with her handkerchief, she sat down upon it, enjoying the delicious hot tea while gazing at the beautiful panorama in front of her.
What followed was the most peaceful fifteen minutes Kritika had spent in a long time, nature with its simple yet enthralling beauty had brought to her heart a joy that none of those fancy malls or expensive contraptions of her city ever did. No wonder there was a beaming unvanquishable smile on her cheeks when she finally left that bench and went on with her walk. It took Kritika another half an hour before she finally reached the premises of her college, and in that time, this maverick of a town continued to inspire in her great awe and wonderment.
From the entry gate Kritika went straight to the hostels, where a room was allotted to her after the necessary formalities. A tidy and airy room it was, the window in the wall opposite the door overlooked the hostel back
yard, where currently some of the girls were engaged in the game of badminton. Deferring the task of unpacking to later, Kritika for now just remained at the window, watching the back and forth flight of one of the shuttles down below, while feeling the drafts of a cool breeze brushing against her face.
These soothing caresses soon lulled her in to a soporific state and she decided to hit the bed. At leisure to settle in since her classes did not start for another couple of days, she drifted off to a quiet sleep, the prospect of spending the greater part of the next two years of her life in this lovely town inducing in her many a happy dreams.
It was in the afternoon that she woke up from the restful nap, and after freshening up, went out to breathe in the beauty of the city once again. If in the morning it was the peaceful tranquility of the mountains that had enthralled her heart, now it was the hustle and bustle of the tourists on the narrow hilly roads that captured her interest.
The famous Shimla Mall road she walked in that warm and delightful afternoon sunshine, here she saw a man on the roadside selling posters while there she came across a peddler dealing in hand crafted toys, by and by she stopped in front of a woman selling all sort of homemade articles and bought from her a khadi shopping bag. The vibrant orange side bag with its rustic embroidery went rather well with the yellow kurti she was wearing, and the now variegated girl marched on with it slung across her right shoulder, looking every bit as colorful as some of the vacationists on show.
Eventually she came across the Victorian steps near the town hall, and here she lounged for a little while before continuing her sightseeing. It was near the ridge of the Mall, where the famous Shimla Christ Church is situated (the second oldest church in whole of North India) that she found herself a music store, and immediately felt an urge to go shopping in it.
A total of five CDs she bought in there but unbeknownst to her, while coming out of that store, she had not five, but six CDs in her khaki bag. While she had been moving from the 80’s rock section to the Country Section of the store, she had happened to pass by the Local Indie Collection, and it was here that this sixth CD had slipped out of its slot from one of the shelves and furtively dropped itself straight down in to her bag.