That night, we slept quite late. No, it wasn’t night. I guess it was close to sunrise when we finally hung up.
I stared at my cellphone and, rising from my bed, I walked to the window. I noticed that the rain had stopped by then. I was tired and hungry, so I picked up an apple from the kitchen and, munching on it, I lay down on my bed. Then I went over our conversation again, over all that had happened, every detail … I don’t know when I fell asleep and started dreaming …
The next morning was beautiful, with the sunrays bouncing into my room through the window. The mornings after a rainy night are really pleasant. With my eyes partially open, I smiled to myself, recalling the previous night. I managed to pull myself up, sat on the bed and turned to see myself in the mirror, still smiling. Then I asked my reflection, ‘Still in her hangover, haan?’
And what a night it was. If a hypothetical kiss could give so much a pleasure, what would a practical one be like, I wondered. Then I decided to call her up—to tease her for all she ended up doing the night before.
She picked up the phone in her sleep and asked, ‘Mera baby uth gaya?’
‘Aah … You kill me when you talk so sweet.’
‘Really?’
‘Hmm …’
‘But I am still sleepy and want to return to my dreams again,’ she said.
Mischievously, I shouted at her, ‘Sleep? I am here to wake you up! Do you even remember what all you said to a guy last night? I mean, I wonder how you could be so open and bold, forcing me to say all that. You know, I was struggling to get over the embarrassment. I never thought you would cross all the boundaries of shyness, ethical values …’
I had not yet finished my speech when she woke up completely and shouted back at me, ‘Aaye-haye … haye … You guys! How cunning you are, my God! All you boys are alike. The lines you said just now should be mine actually. You stole my lines just because I was sleepy. You crossed all your boundaries and pulled me to the other side as well. How could you do that? You guys play so smart with innocent girls like me …’
‘Hey,’ I said, interrupting, trying to calm her down. But she kept going like an opposition party’s representative on NDTV’s Big Fight.
‘… All you guys are like chameleons, changing your colour when required … You …’
And I was trying to recall where I had heard about chameleons.
Probably in Biology. Was it some kind of flower which changed colour at night and returned to its original colour in the morning? I think it was something else. I wasn’t that good with Bio.
Keeping the chameleon at bay, I tried to interrupt again, ‘Achcha baba, listen to me.’
‘… And only you boys want to talk like this, we girls never …’ She was not through yet.
‘Hey, Khushi …’I said, but she was completely ignoring me. ‘… And you know what? All you boys …’
‘OK ENOUGH!’ I shouted, ‘YOU KNOW WHAT? THAT HALF AN HOUR LAST NIGHT IS SO PRECIOUS TO ME, THAT I AM READY TO DIE A HUNDRED DEATHS TO ENJOY THAT AGAIN WITH YOU … AND JUST YOU.’ This time, she heard every word loud and clear. I continued, ‘Because it was so sweet, so loving, and so beautiful. And I am so happy that you trust me enough to allow me to get so close toy ou. And I want to say that … I love you so much.’
And she melted like an ice-cream in summer.
‘Sachhi?’ Her innocent, sweet voice was calm now.
‘Muchhi. I will wait for our engagement evening to come true this way. Just make sure that you don’t put on a lot of lipstick.’
‘Shut up,’ she said shyly.
All day I waited for the confirmation of news which would have been good, if it had been at another time. Unfortunately, I got the confirmation and I had to tell her and my family too. I wondered if she would be happy when she found out, or sad.
Still, without thinking any further, I called her up to tell her. When she did not pick her phone, I got back to my studies. Five minutes later, I heard my cellphone ringing. I could see her name flashing on the screen.
I picked up the phone and said, ‘Hi, Jaaaaaaaaaan,’ very romantically, with a small kiss.
‘Uh … Hi.’
Damn! It was Neeru, her younger sister. What a blunder. What should I say now? Should I talk or should I just disconnect? I was panicking. With the kind of image I had projected to her family, that first line would have been a shock for sure.
‘How are you?’ Neeru asked me, breaking the silence.
‘Uh … I am fine. How are you? And how come you called up from her cell,’ I asked, scratching my head and wondering whether she hadn’t heard my previous line because of some chamatkaar or due to some fault in the phone or the network.
‘I am fine. Actually, Khushi was in the washroom and I was about to take your call when the ring stopped. So I dialed the missed-call number. Well, here she is, back in this room. And now she is struggling with me to snatch her cellphone …’ and her voice faded into the background.
Finally, Khushi said, ‘Haan … Hello,’ defending herself from her sister’s punches. Neeru wanted to talk to me, and it was probably the only time when I felt uncomfortable talking to her, just because of the way the call started.
‘Hey, thank God you came,’ I said to her.
‘Shona, ek minute,’ she paused with that sentence to hear something which Neeru was trying to tell her at the other end. That ‘ek minute’ lasted for five minutes and I realized how wrong I was to think of any chamatkaar.
‘What?’ Khushi shouted, amused, and laughed crazily.
‘Hi, meri jaan!’ Neeru shouted from behind and joined her sister’s laughter.
‘OH MY GOD!’ I thought, feeling very embarrassed.
But Khushi didn’t come to my defence. Rather, she joined her sister in celebrating that moment.
‘Damn!’ I thought. ‘Her little sister talked to me as if she didn’t hear anything and look at her now. Girls!’ I now remembered what a chameleon was, and thought the analogy suited girls even better—they change colours so fast.
So that was how I became a joke for the two sisters.
I almost forgot the reason I had called her, when Khushi came back at last, taking a break from her laughter.
‘Yeah … Tell me now. She’s gone to another room.’
‘Your sister is so cunning. She behaved as if she did not hear anything.’
‘After all, she’s my sister!’
‘Now I won’t be able to face her for the next few days.’
‘Oh come on! After all you are her jiju, and such things keep happening between jiju and saali.’
‘But, the next time, I won’t begin with romantic lines, unless I make sure it’s you on phone.’
‘Ok baba, now tell me. What were you going to say?’
After a small pause, I said in a single go, ‘I need to go to the US for four weeks, for my project.’
‘What?’ Actually it was more like, ‘W-H-A-T?????’ A single word with a thousand thoughts running through it, all in different directions.
‘Yes.’
‘Why so suddenly?’ she asked impatiently.
‘I knew that this thing was in the pipeline. But I was trying to avert it for the CAT in November. There isn’t any escape from this now.’
‘But … you can make any high priority excuse, right?’
‘Hmm … But it’s going to matter for my career too, dear. Listen. Please don’t get angry. At this point, I am a little confused about how I will do this. I mean, leaving the IMS classes, the mock-tests. I need your support.’
‘IMS, mock-tests, career … You remember everything, but what about me? Busy in our office, career and IMS classes, we have not even seen each other yet. Ours is such a different story … And now you’re saying you are going to the States …’ She was about to cry.
‘Hey … But I have something to cheer you up.’
‘What is it?’
‘I will be boarding my plane from New Delhi. I’ll take a day’s leave so that I can spend an e
ntire day with you. We’ll finally be seeing each other! Isn’t that something to cheer up about?’
Even I knew that it wasn’t the perfect way to cheer her up—spending an entire day with her and then leaving the country for more than a month. But the fact that we would get to spend an entire day with each other gave some comfort to our hearts. It was not as if we had any option other than eagerly waiting for that day to arrive and then trying to make it last as long as a year.
What was surprising, though, was that an official, on-site trip was giving us the opportunity to see each other for the very first time. At times, we wondered how busy our life was: running from office to IMS, from career to family, but with no time to see the person with whom we were going to spend the rest of our lives.
Every passing day was marked. And as time passed, our feelings got stronger. The excitement was increasing, both, in the mind and in the heart. And finally, the day arrived when we met each other for the very first time.
It is a hot, sticky Sunday afternoon. We are watching the same movie on our televisions: she, in Faridabad; I, in Bhubaneswar. And I am doing this because she sent me an SMS, telling me to watch it.
In the movie, the heroine is packing her bags after having a big fight with her hubby.
At this very moment, Khushi calls me up. And putting herself in that woman’s shoes, I don’t understand why, she says, ‘You know what? If someday I am so angry that I want to run away from you … just do a simple thing …’
I don’t say anything, but she continues.
‘Simply run to me and give me a tight hug, no matter how much I hit you then. But give me a warm, tight hug. Don’t say a word. Just hold me in your arms for sometime … And, a little later, help me in unpacking my bags. Bolo karoge na?’
Face-to-Face
It was 2.30 in the afternoon and I was on an airbus from Bhubaneswar to Delhi. First row, window seat. I just love getting window seats.
With my official laptop on my lap, I wasn’t working extra hours and making Infy proud of me. Rather, I was going through her pictures which I’d managed to download at the very last minute before leaving for the airport.
During the journey, I gave plenty of reasons to the air hostesses and my fellow passengers to think that there was something wrong with me. Or, to be precise, with my brain. When you see a guy talking to his laptop, at times looking outside at the clouds, smiling, then looking at the screen again and smiling one more time—you cannot be blamed for feeling that his top floor might be vacant.
I remember the discomfort of the air hostess when she caught me smiling at my laptop while she was delivering the safety demo. She probably hated me because the demo was supposed to be in sync with the announcement by her colleague, and she was lagging behind. But who asked her to focus on me? I didn’t.
On my computer screen
Gazing at her picture
I found myself falling with the rising heights
Falling in Love with her
Couldn’t resist saying—I love you
The madness added
When the picture said it too
If you ask me why I was blushing and smiling, I had plenty of answers for that. Enjoying the candies (served by the same air hostess), I was recalling how Khushi gave me a call last night as the minute hand just moved past 12 a.m. and we entered the first minute of a new day—today.
‘You are going to come to me todayyyyy,’ she shouted
‘Oh Boy! I am going crazzzyyyyyyyy,’ I also shouted, jumping in my balcony, stirring the calm midnight.
I guess I woke up some of my neighbors, and disturbed some who were about to orgasm. A couple of street dogs came out of the darkness and started barking at me. I rushed back into my room when I saw the lights turn on in a few flats in the building next to mine.
Laughing at last night’s events and still enjoying my candies, I recollected how confused I was that morning about what to wear. I pulled out everything from my closet that morning and tried it all in front of the mirror. I took almost an hour to decide and, then, changed again just before I left for the office. The funny thing is that I ended up wearing the only shirt which wasn’t ironed (along with dark denim).
Everything I did that day, I made a mess of. And while I recalled those moments, every now and then weird thoughts would pop into my head—
What if she isn’t as beautiful as she appears in her pictures?
What if she laughs in a very weird way?
What if she limps?
—and many other such thoughts played hide and seek in my mind, until I finally asked myself the big question.
Do you love her, Ravin?
Holy shit! Of course it was too late to be asking this.
‘Yes, I do. Of course I do,’ I said to myself.
Well, to be honest, I actually forced myself to say it. I don’t know why I was a little apprehensive. But, good or bad, the truth was that marrying her was my independent decision, one that I had arrived at without any kind of pressure from my family or from her.
So, to silence those weird thoughts, I pulled out a newspaper from the small rack in front of my seat. But I could not concentrate on the newspaper either. There was a different kind of excitement in me which was sending up a chill inside me, shaking me a bit at times. I don’t know what kind of fear it was.
The nervousness and anxiety meant I was going to the loo every twenty minutes. I became a peeing machine. It happens to everyone … Or doesn’t it? And I was sure that the kid on the last seat was counting the number of times I passed by him. I pretended to ignore him when he started whispering in his mom’s ear. Of course he was telling her about me. I noticed his hand pointing at me, which his mom pulled back, smiling.
Finally at 5 in the evening, the plane landed at Delhi and I switched on my mobile completely ignoring the captain’s command to not do so before instructed. While the plane was taking a U—turn on the runway, I looked out of the window to see if there was any girl waving towards my plane—it could be her! (Now, I wonder how I could have been so silly as to expect visitors on the runway.)
I was trying to call her up but, for some reason, my cellphone could not adapt itself to the roaming zone. I kept trying, cursing my phone and the network. I kept trying and kept failing.
A few minutes later, I was standing at the baggage claim section, waiting for my luggage to arrive. But my eyes were not on the conveyor belt. They were looking for something else, rather someone else. Here and there, I was looking at every girl, and peering at the crowd standing outside which was visible through the glass wall.
Then I saw my red bag gliding towards me on the belt. But before it could reach me, she reached me.
On my phone.
My cell was working now and I heard the ring. ‘Khushi calling,’ it said. I took her call.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey.’
Silence.
‘So.’ And I turned back, facing the exit.
‘So.’
‘What so?’
‘I mean, where are you?’
She had never seemed so shy and silent. I could almost hear her blushing. Obviously, her state of mind was no different from mine. And how could it be? Two people, who were madly in love with each other and had decided to marry each other, were going to see each other for the first time in their life!
‘I am at the baggage claim section,’ I said. And, with that, I noticed my bag going away from me. ‘Damn! I missed it.’
‘What did you miss?’
‘My luggage. I started talking to you and I missed it.’
‘Uh-oh.’ She paused while I kept my eyes on the conveyor belt. Then she spoke again, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘What?’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because … even I am,’ she confessed. Then she said, ‘Ok! Tell me, what are you wearing today?’
‘Olive-green shirt and dark-blue jeans. You?’
&nb
sp; ‘Oh my God!’
‘What happened?’ I thought she didn’t like the colour I was wearing.
‘It looks good on me.’
‘No, no. It’s not about good or bad.’
‘Then?’
‘I am also wearing olive-green and blue jeans.’
Coincidences seemed always to be following us. Our birthplace, the month, the year, our interest in music, our career, IMS. And now, the clothes we were wearing that day.
‘Amazing! We are definitely made for each other. Hey! My luggage is coming to me again. I’m going to pick it up and come outside in two minutes. See ya!’
I made my way through the broken queue to get my bag, and loading it on a trolley, I walked towards the exit. The laptop was still hanging on my shoulder.
Finally about to see her, I was anxious, shivering and my heart was beating fast. Every feminine voice from the crowd seemed to be hers. Of course, I was trying to behave as if I was relaxed and cool.
‘Relax … Relax … Relax. Take a deep breath,’ I told myself. And the next thing I know, I was already outside.
There were a lot of people in front of me, waiting for their dear ones. Some cab drivers, holding up nameplates for their bosses. There was a lot of shouting and noise from the traffic.
Then, for some reason, I stopped moving forward and turned left.
And there she was!
My angel, my beautiful one.
Her smile which tried to override my senses. That chilling hesitation in her, and in me. Her long, untied hair that fell upon her eyes with a gust of wind. Her hand moving across her face, and moving her hair behind her left ear. Her left ear, and the glittering silver earring she was wearing. Her beautiful face, which mesmerized me. And in that green, off-shoulder top and jeans, her body appeared so perfect, so young, so poised. She was charismatic. I wasn’t able to take my eyes off her. Rather, I wanted to stare at her from top to bottom, very slowly—which I actually did.
‘This is her,’ I told myself. ‘She is mine.’
That was a wonderful moment which I have re-lived again and again, recalling that first sight.