Two days in the Life of - A narrative in three parts - Part II

The story did not come out in one burst. Over what seemed like a never ending supply of cappuccino, he learned something about this woman who had changed his day irretrievably. Learned that she was unmarried and was supporting her unmarried sister and aged parents. She came from a small town in the Tehri (that explained her high cheekbones and the doe eyes or did it?). Her sister was in the same city, working at a bank and had a boyfriend who was not quite right in the head and so was going crazy. She had wanted to separate from him. Being the responsible older sister, she had gone to the boyfriend’s house to talk it over with him. What had followed was a true horror story where the boyfriend, doped out of his wits, had raped her. She could not divulge the truth to her sister who had made up with the boyfriend and so the shameful secret remained with her. The blood was from the stitches in her tongue where she had bitten through during the episode. The stitches had reopened partially at the hospital where she had learnt that she was pregnant – the report that she had been carrying.

After this revelation, she suddenly seemed to regret having told him. Visible signs of withdrawal accompanied a retreat into her shell as the silence stretched out between them like a rubber band stretching to eternity. He could not bring himself to look at her and confined himself to staring into his coffee cup while she fought her battles alone.

After what seemed like an eternity, he looked up from the dregs at the bottom of his empty cup and stared into eyes that opened up into a blazing hell. Anything he would have said at that instant would have been inane and woefully inadequate. He just reached out involuntarily and put his hand on hers, the touch seeking to offer solace and warmth. No pity, just understanding. After a moment, he suddenly became aware of his indiscretion and pulled his hand away. Her hand still lay there, an opened flower that was seeking the warmth of the sun. She turned her hand, palm upwards as if enquiring why he had taken his hand away. He suddenly noticed her skin was pearly and the green veins shone as they travelled up the inner road of her hand to her elbow where they disappeared beneath the cuff of her kurta. He tore his eyes away and turned his glance to her face only to find that she had bowed her head and her hair hid her face.

Not knowing what to do, he jammed his hand into his pocket and came up with his keys. He stuffed them back in. More despair at what to do with his hand as the urge to put it back on hers was mounting. Finally, he clasped one hand with another – almost like using one hand to hold back the other from doing what it wanted. His eyes were drawn back to her hand – still lying there, now like a crumpled, used piece of cloth. The word ‘used’ brought a surge of anger at what had happened to her. That surprised him. He was not a selfish person but had never felt so strongly emotional about anyone other than family or very close friends. Why then was he getting so affected?

He glanced at his watch – it was almost 1 PM. No point in going to work now, he thought. Besides, he felt hungry. He mustered up courage and spoke to the bowed head in front of him about lunch. No answer was forthcoming. He signaled the boy behind the counter to give him the cheque and paid for it. He then gathered up her things and stood up, only to realize that she had not lifted her head, leave alone being aware of his actions. He did not know how to stand her up, and finally touched her tentatively on her shoulder. The head swung up and she drew in a racking, shuddering breath in counterpoint to her raw and agonized eyes. He asked her if she wanted to go. She stood up uncertainly and walked to the door and beyond, to the car park.

In the car, he asked her where she wanted to go. He encountered the wall again. He then tried a different tack, asking her what she wanted done about her car. She mentioned a service station but did not have the number. He called his secretary and almost cut the call when she started yelling about his missed appointments and the fact that he had not responded to any of her frantic calls and that half of the office was searching for him whereas the other half was gloating at his having got into so many people’s bad books. Finally, he got her to stop and asked her for the number of the service station. He called them and asked them to pick up the car and gave his contact number. Turning to ask her if she wanted to be dropped somewhere after that, he found her asleep. Head tilted and resting against the window, hair shielding her face and jaw line strong in repose. He felt the urge to smooth the hair away from her face and controlled himself. Instead, he started the car and drove slowly, taking care not to jolt her in her sleep. He drove to the point where her car had stalled and handed over the key to the maintenance engineer when he came.

Getting back into the car, he realized that he did not have a clue of what to do next. The day was nearly over. In another hour, he would be stuck in the reverse crawl of traffic as the millions of worker ants furiously fought their way back to their anthills. He decided to drive close to his apartment. If she woke up, he would put her on a taxi and send her home. He could then reach home quickly without having to endure traffic again. He reached his apartment in about 20 minutes without encountering anything on the way. As he turned the car into the apartment parking, he realized that his original plan had failed. She had not woken up and he had not put her in a taxi and sent her on her way. He stopped, wondering what he should do. He could not move her from the car and neither could he let her sleep in it. The problem resolved itself miraculously as she woke up with the car bouncing on the speed breaker at the entry to the parking. She looked at him strangely as if she was trying to figure out why she was with him. Then something clicked into place in her mind and she smiled. It was like the sun had come out from behind clouds. His heart did a crazy tilt.

She spoke, voice husky from sleep. The voice sent goose bumps along the length of his spine. “Hungry” was what she said. And he smiled and said “OK” in response to the childlike response. Reversing the car out of the parking lot, he drove to a nearby restaurant. She ordered a mammoth meal and he ordered just a salad. No conversation happened, she looked outside the window and he studied the tapestry. But the silence was not strained or uncomfortable. The food arrived and he watched her wolf it down without apparently stopping for a breath. She stopped midway, feeling his eyes on her. An embarrassed smile and a muttered “Sorry, I am hungry” punctuated the return to eating. He smiled his acceptance. She finished and pushed her plate away at the end, signing completion with a soft burp. One more ‘Sorry’ and a half smile accompanied that.

He ordered some coffee to wash down the food. She declined – too much coffee was bad for the baby. And besides, her digestion was not as good with her present condition, she had heartburn easily and coffee was the worst support for those. She rambled on, seemingly lost in a recount of her present predicament to her own self. He felt that it would be intrusive to respond and so remained on the fringes of the conversation, listening and making the correct noises to encourage the flow. He thought as he listened, she really cares about this baby, in spite of the circumstances in which it was born. And with that realization, a small flower in his heart took bloom, stretching to full flowering with a power to almost grip his heart in one big squeeze until he felt that he could neither breathe in nor out.

As suddenly as the verbal flow had started, she realized what had happened and stopped – as suddenly as a bull hitting the wall of the ring and coming to stand still. Conversation or what was actually a monologue died out and suddenly the silence became uncomfortable. She sensed this and said “Sorry for having just rambled on.” He smiled his okay once again, not finding the right words to respond. Finishing the coffee, he signaled for the check. Putting his card into the folder, he made up his mind that he would now drop her off and get back to his sane and regular life, ignoring that sharp tinge of regret that the thought brought. So, he raised his head and asked “So, where can I drop you?” She suddenly looked lost, the clouds took over the sun again and temporarily her world turned gloomy and overcast. He tried to probe gently, interrupted by the return of his card and the charge slip. When he finished signing and keeping the tip money in the folder, he saw that the seat opposite was empty.

While he was taking care of the check, she had left, silently. He ran outside the restaurant trying to wildly catch a sight of her. There was no sign of anybody that remotely looked like her on the roads as far as he could see. He suddenly felt like a child who had dropped its candy on the road – an insane urge to sit down and cry. He did actually sit down on the steps of the restaurant and put his head on his knees, breathing ragged and forced. After a couple of minutes, he heard a tentative foot step and a gentle, tentative touch on his right shoulder. Lifting his head, his heart started a series of cartwheels as he saw her standing next to him. He finally managed to draw his senses together and stood up. She smiled and said “I had to go to the restroom.” He felt like a complete idiot at that. Yet another instance when he could not muster up any response. But it seemed like a response was not required.

They left the restaurant in the car, an unsaid accord that she would go with him. It seemed the most natural thing to do. He stepped in front and opened the door for her – an idiotic throwback to a chivalry that he had not felt in a really long time. And he walked to the other side to find that she had opened the driver’s side for him. For some reason, that made him grin and then immediately stop as he thought he might be looking like the circus clown with a wide grin. The car wound it’s way down the roads as the traffic crept it’s way home. He drove back to his apartment – it needed no asking. The security guard at the gate hurriedly opened the gate for him as he drove back over the speed breaker – this time more carefully. Parking the car, he got out and found that she was still sitting in the car, lost in her own world.

He walked around to her side of the car and stood there wondering what to do. Clearing his throat would not have helped with the windows rolled up. Finally, feeling like a teenager, unsure of what he should do next, he knocked on the window. It drew the instant response of her resurfacing into this world and an even more unexpected one of a smile lighting up her eyes. His world which had been in a crazy tilt all day, suddenly righted itself. He felt his involuntary response of a smile. He opened the door for her, thinking that he would be travelling back to the Knight’s age, what with all the chivalry that he seemed to be getting back to. She seemed to think it was natural and accepted it without a comment, gathering her things and walking out of the car.

They walked upto the elevator and stood silent as it glided up to the heights of the building. It stopped at the 13^th floor and they got out. She looked at him, an unspoken question. He seemed to get it without the word and said, “13 is my lucky number.” She smiled her answer. Walking down the corridor, her smile widened as they came to a stop in front of number 1313. Now, he did not have to explain. He felt his pockets for his keys. In a weird pantomime of a dancer performing a series of steps, he patted down all his pockets, not once but twice but could not locate his keys. Thinking he must have left them in the car, he asked her to wait there while he went and checked it out. Stepping back in the lift, he found himself getting strangely impatient at every stop the lift made as it wound it’s way down in a seemingly endless journey to the basement. He ran to the car and found the keys where they had fallen out of his pocket onto the seat. He ran back to the lift and stood there impatiently drumming his fingers on the doors while he waited. He realized that he was actually running back to her and wondered at what had happened to his calm, cool and collected existence in the last few hours - a millpond that had been swept into a maelstrom by the simple breeze that had blown in.

He stepped out of the elevator and saw her sitting down in the corridor, her back against the wall. He ran towards her and stopped short as he noticed her head thrown back against the wall and eyes closed. Her breathing deep and even, she must have slid back into that tired sleep which had her in it’s grip earlier, he thought. He stood there for a while debating on what to do and finally decided to open his apartment. He let himself in and kept his things in the usual places, the man of routine that he was. Everything in it’s place and a place for everything, his favourite saying seemed to mock him now given his current situation and how he was finding it increasingly tentative and unchartered.

He walked back to the door, hoping by some miracle of fate that she would have woken up. However, the gods were smiling somewhere else that day. She continued to slump against the wall, a sack of potatoes that had been heaved around too much, slightly worse for wear. He looked up and down the corridor and saw the elevator doors opening. He suddenly did not want any of his neighbours seeing her sleeping in front of his apartment like this. What would that Mrs. Sharma say to Mrs. Khanna over their morning cup outside their balconies loudly exchanging gossip? He would be the favourite topic of all conversations until the next spicy topic came up. His mind made up in a split, he swooped down and braced himself. Sliding one hand beneath her knees, he used one hand to pull her away from the wall. He tried to lift her in a jerk and found that she was heavier than he expected, the sudden weight caught him by surprise and he almost dropped her onto the floor. Catching himself by sheer willpower that seemed to work against gravity for once, he stood slowly and carried her into the apartment. He crossed the threshold carrying her and kicked the door shut behind him.

He stood there trying to decide on what he should do next, where he should put her, when the doorbell rang, a strident noise that cut through his thinking like a knife through butter. His reactions turned involuntary as he quickly made his way into his room and put her gently down on his bed. Drawing up the covers over her, he noticed that he had not taken off her footwear and that it would leave dirt marks on his white sheets. He smiled at his sudden tolerance for dirt and finished pulling up the covers. He turned off the lights and then suddenly thought that she would be scared if she woke up suddenly in a strange place. He had never favoured a night lamp. Finally, after an endless period of thinking how to light up the room, he turned on the lights in the toilet and left the door slightly ajar. A second loud buzz from the doorbell drove him to quick action. He quickly shut his room door behind him and went down to the front door. Peeking into the peep hole, he saw that it was Mrs. Sharma. Had she seen him carrying her in? His stomach suddenly became an endless horizon filled with butterflies of all shapes and sizes as he opened the door. Mrs. Sharma smiled sweetly at him as she asked what had kept him from opening the door. He muttered a reply about an office phone call. Then to his utter relief, she extended a bowl at him and asked him for some sugar. He filled it up with more than usual generosity and gave it back, glad to see her go without any further questions. Just as he closed the door, he heard her turn and ask whether he was entertaining any guests. He chose the safe path of not replying. She came waddling back and told him that she had seen him with a “woman” in his car. He murmured something about a relative knowing full well it was only going to add fuel to this fire. He refused to be drawn into a conversation and she finally gave up after persistent worrying – a dog with a bone which she could not get a handle on. Finally he bolted the door shut behind her, heaving a massive sigh of relief.

He shed his jacket and loosened his tie putting it back neatly folded in his closet. He took out a change of clothes as silently as he could, taking care not to disturb her. He felt that looking would be an infringement of personal space and stoically refused to glance at the bed. Changing into his normal tee shirt and track pants in the guest bed room, he caught sight of himself – an up and coming executive pushing 35, more of a rat than anybody else in the rat race and proud of it, a workaholic by choice, evaluating his achievements in the bonuses he made every year, wishing he had the time to return his mother’s innumerable calls and rationalizing that she would understand his pressures. Physically he was fit with a surprising high energy level as his colleagues had often told him – he took pride in rubbing their faces in it when at the end of a twelve hour work day, he was sharper than they were in the meeting. And yet, today, for the first time in his working career, he had not even thought of office, to the point of regarding calls from office as a distraction! What was happening to him?

His musing was rudely interrupted by a crash from his room and went running in with his tee half pulled down over his head. He stopped short as he found her still sleeping, her arms akimbo and head turned to one side as her breathing fell shallow and ragged. Her arm had hit his bedside clock which had fallen and hence the crash. He stood there watching, feeling like a voyeur in his own home, rooted to the spot, unable to move. The clock lay on the floor, it’s digital hands ticking time away as it moved resolutely forward. However, for him, time stood still, it’s moments frozen as he stared unblinking at this stranger who had landed with hob nailed boots on his ordered existence and thrown it into complete disarray like a child scattering the toys that the maid had just neatly arranged. She was hardly a child though he reminded himself and neither was he. And he had no business standing there and staring like that. He turned to leave and was arrested in motion by a sob.

He turned to look, half afraid that she had woken up. He found her still in some semblance of sleep but caught up in some private hell of her own. She had started fighting something in her sleep, fists bunched up, body curled into a tight little ball, head whipping about, and repeating only one word – “No”. She had started sweating and a thin sheen shone about her face and arms. Unsure of what he could do, he watched and waited. The storm continued unabated as she fought uninterrupted for a while. Then, slowly, like the calm after the storm, her breathing eased, gradually, like the gentle breeze that refreshes after the gale has spent its force.  The feeling of intrusion returned to him once again, cold and hard in its presence. But he felt that if he left her alone, she would wake up in the strange room, all alone and get scared again. So, finally, he got himself a glass of water and settled down in the reclining chair opposite the bed with a cushion to keep him company. At first he found himself watching her as she slept. Catching himself for the umpteenth time, he decided to bring a book to read. Finding the last book that he had tried unsuccessfully to read at a stretch, he started on the page that he had bookmarked.

He suddenly woke up, the book still in his hands, realizing that he must have fallen asleep reading, as usual. He looked at the bed and found that she had woken up too and was sitting watching him, much the same way that he had watched her. Except that there was no intrusion in her gaze, it was an open study. She smiled at his look and said “Don’t worry; I just woke up a few minutes ago.” He smiled sheepishly and muttered about not wanting to leave her alone, thinking he should explain what he was doing on a chair in the same room. She interrupted him with a “Thanks”. That took the wind out of his sails and he settled back again. He looked at his watch and realized that it was past 3 AM. He must have been asleep for the past 5 hours or so. Hearing a rumble from his stomach, he realized that he had not had dinner or anything remotely resembling food after the café. Being the pathetic cook that he was, his only hope of satisfying his crying stomach was to fix a sandwich. He stood and asked her if she wanted something to eat. She nodded and watched as he made his way out of the room.

He walked through to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator searching for the cucumber, the tomatoes and the bread. After a few minutes of searching he realized that he did have bread but very little else. He pulled his head out of the refrigerator and closed the door only to find that she had followed him into the kitchen and stood there smiling and shaking her head disapprovingly. He asked her what she found so funny and she replied that it was his kitchen – designed as a show piece but of little practical use. Her mockery of his grade A, top of the shelf, Italian modular kitchen roused his pride and he asked her what she would have done instead. She only replied that she would have to take a hammer to this one to show him and that would cost him a pile of money. He decided not to pursue the subject, not trusting his wayward tongue at keeping itself under control, liable to vent out his ire in some bitter sarcasm.

He took the loaf of bread to the counter instead and started spreading some jam on it with a knife. After seeing him successfully disintegrate a third slice of bread with his efforts at spreading the jam, she stepped up right next to him and took the knife and slice of bread from his hands. He was forced to step back as she took over, quick and efficient, the knife moving in long, easy strokes as she spread the jam on the bread effortlessly. After she had created a pile of jam sandwiches, she asked him if there was any milk. He wordlessly took out the tetra pack of milk and gave it to her. She smiled as she took it from him, nodding her seeming disapproval at yet another facet of his life. He was quickly back on the defensive and asked her what was funny only to be met with a disarming version of the same weapon which was accompanied by a single word “Nothing”. She insisted on boiling the milk and poured it out of the saucepan into two glasses and took the plate and the two glasses out into the hall. He was left with no choice but to follow her.

She had settled herself on the carpet, leaning back against the diwan’s cushion that she had brought down to the floor. She was already halfway into one of the sandwiches as he came into view and stopped only to nod him to join her on the floor. He picked up a spot opposite her and stretched out on the carpet, wondering when he had ever used the carpet this way last. Biting into one of the sandwiches, he found her continuing to study him. Uncomfortable at being the object of so much attention, he looked away. Not finding anything worthwhile in the whole room to keep his gaze on, he finally looked around for the remote of the TV and switched it on, inevitably on one of the Money Market channels that he watched while he ate. He looked back at her and found her openly smiling at his attempt at escaping her. He smiled back and resolutely focused back on the TV. The lady on the screen could not hold his attention as his senses seemed to be attuned to the person sitting opposite him. His glance kept getting drawn back to her as she tried watching the TV for a while and then gave up and got back to looking at him. Once or twice as he looked at her, he caught her looking at him. But he was the first to look away as she refused to.

After several unsuccessful attempts at concentrating on what was happening on the TV, he turned to look and found her still staring at him. This time she asked a question “Do you intend to bore yourself to death or can I watch something interesting?” He could only muster a weak “Be my guest”. He watched as she flipped through a series of entertainment channels, finally settling on a romantic movie running on one of them. Her gaze was off him now as she sipped on the milk and watched the romance unfolding on the screen. That gave him the opportunity he needed to study her in turn. He watched as she mirrored the emotions on the screen, the love, the laughter, the tears. Finally, as the movie drew to a close about a hour and a quarter later, she realized that he had been watching her and embarrassed, gathered the plates and glasses and walked back into the kitchen. 

Stepping Out

I saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel,

It’s warm yellow glow beckoning and inviting,

Holding out the last lamp of hope before I fell,

My mind and body one big mass of pain, tiring.

Is it a portal through to where I want to go,

Or is it a mirage, a whisper of a promise,

So enticing that the heart does not say no,

To fall into an elephant trap, an endless abyss.

I will never know until I step out into the light,

To see my shadow as it stretches out at my side,

A valley, lush and green, stretching out into sight,

A paradise regained, the start of an endless ride.

The story of a pebble ...

I was once a part of a huge rock face,
hard, immobile, unmoving, monolithic,
which had seen a million and one days,
weather beaten, resolute and yet stoic.

Until there came once a rain like never,
pounding and fierce, a veritable deluge,
that caused a flood and a river to waver,
and swallow everything, a tidal wave huge.

The river changed its course since then,
and the rock went under the water flow,
chipping and eroding for a season and ten,
sometimes hot and dry, some under snow.

Then one day as the snowcap was melting,
under a warm spring sun beating down,
there was a crack and a noise like grinding,
as a portion of the rock broke, a big stone.

The stone was carried by the river awhile,
rolling and tumbling, it's edges chipping,
loosing weight and becoming more agile,
as it went, into smaller pieces breaking.

Of one of those small pieces I was born,
a piece of stone, edgy, white and shining,
bouncing on the river bed, getting worn,
becoming smooth and shiny, glistening.

One day I ran into a rock on the river path,
like the rock face, which I had been a part,
and through the air, like a bird after a bath,
I flew unknowing, as at the journey's start.

Now I just lie waiting endlessly in the sand,
on the bank of a river that flows so near,
waiting for the errant schoolboy's hand,
that will pick me and move me from here.

Skip me across the water surface so slick,
bouncing, flying as I lose speed, slacken,
till the river swell carries me like magic,
to my destination, in its course unshaken.

That sea in whose arms I want to lie in,
the waters so cold as I fall into her depth,
the release for which I have been waiting,
like a long awaited exhaling of my breath.

Two Days in the life of - A narrative in 3 parts - Part 1

All of the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. That is how his life felt, fragile like a bunch of eggshells on a busy pavement, like the snowflake on an outstretched hand, melting even as it touches the warmth of the skin.

The past 48 hours of his life had changed him completely, almost redefined the boundaries of his existence. Miraculously, he had made it through them so far, though unchanged was hardly a word he could use to describe the way he felt.

He thought back to the start of the day as it was with any other. His early morning cup of tea steaming into his face as he had gazed into the spreading orange of the sun clambering its way up the horizon. The thought that there were a few clouds obstructing the sun's right to passage had just been a fleeting shadow across the face of the plains in his mind. His quick shower and dressing up, wolfed down breakfast let him grab an early edge on the workday. He liked to start with an empty office and get some miles under him before the rest of the troop sauntered in.

He had started his drive by rote, tuning into his favorite radio station and easing the car into the traffic, another ant in the long migratory line. The car was like most of his other possessions - old and cherished, almost a part of 'him'. He felt it respond to the slightest nudge and smiled at his ‘stallion'.

The traffic had been a little dense for a Monday early morning, tempers fraying, sleeves rolling up and furious faces glaring disapproval. The long procession had carried on at snail's pace. The vehicle ahead of him had seemed to be moving like a rheumatic tortoise, jerking and shuddering to a start and likewise to stop after a foot of movement forward. He had felt sorry for the driver who he was sure was cooking inside the car weighed under by the weight of the thought he or she carried. Then he had chanced a glimpse at the driver through the rear view mirror - a woman looking very tense, upset and almost on the verge of bursting into tears.

She was young, must be about 30 and was pretty in a very ordinary sort of way like the common man's Aphrodite. He put the thought quickly out of his mind and focused on the road ahead. But for some strange reason, his eyes kept getting drawn to the rear view mirror in the car ahead. Now he was sure she was crying. It was the first time he had seen such an open display of emotion in a public setting and it nearly grabbed him by the throat. The girl was definitely sobbing now.

He felt like he was invading her privacy as he stole furtive looks at her. But she was past caring, window rolled down, tears streaming down her face, caught in the throes of some unnamed deep grief. She used her sleeve to brush away some errant tears that found their way past her jaw down her neck. He noticed that her top looked ruffled and creased like it had been slept in. She was stoically unaware of the stares she seemed to be attracting and sat there on her own island in the midst of this ocean of fuel and fumes, grieving and hurting.

He found himself thinking about what could have caused her the hurt. He started guessing. By her age, she was likely to be married. She was not dressed for office and so must be heading home this early. Was it a secret arraignment with a lover that had gone wrong? Or had she found out the husband’s infidelity, surprised him at home returning from a late night flight that she had advanced to make it early? Or was it a sudden spat, a rush of words spit out which cannot be taken back, an angry upsurge turned into a deluge of hurt? The thoughts rushed through his mind flitting like a bee, not settling on any one in particular. All the while, he kept glancing at the woman’s face. The tears had stopped now but the red rimmed eyes were gazing at some distant sunset on a faraway shore.

As the traffic inched forward like the ant trail that it was, suddenly, the car in front of him seemingly gave up its last breath and coughed up a cloud of steam from under the bonnet and stopped. Finally, relief, it seemed to say. He saw the woman’s face turn frantic and panic stricken. She tried to restart the engine - CPR to a dead horse. Cars behind him started honking impatiently, demanding right of way. This did nothing to help the woman’s already thinly stretched nerves. She finally gave up after what seemed like an eternity and put her head down on the wheel, between her two hands clutching the steering so tight that her knuckles shone like white ivory.

Seemingly, of their own volition, his hands turned off his engine, opened the door and stepped out. He waved the snail train behind signaling them to pass by. Then he walked across to the woman in the car. She was sobbing uncontrollably, unaware of his approach. He stood there at the window, not sure how to announce his arrival. Coughing seemed too formal, so did “Excuse me”. He finally bent down and said “Do you need a hand?”

The woman lifted her face, blind eyed with tears and unseeing past all that was still flowing out from her. She frowned in her incomprehension. So he repeated himself. She said in halting words, interspersed with her sobs which were still continuing “My car …” It was then that he noticed the red streak running from the corner of her mouth into her neck and disappearing into the nape of her neck, wet and glistening. He said “You’re bleeding”. In answer, she quickly wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and cheek, unconsciously spreading the red streak to a gulal stain. He took out his handkerchief and offered it and she accepted, using it to wipe her cheek and neck. Turning to give it back, she stopped, confused at returning a blood streaked handkerchief to him. He waved it off. “Could you step out of the car? I will push it across to the side and then you can call for help.” he offered. She simply got out of the car and stood there, weaving a little bit like a drunk trying to walk a straight line for a cop. He switched the car into neutral and put his shoulder to the side, steering with one hand. Feeling a resistance, he looked down to see the hand brake on – must have caused the problem in the first place. Releasing it, he maneuvered the car to the pavement and stopped it there.

He rolled up the windows, locked the car and turned to give the key to the woman only to find that she was still standing in the middle of the road where the car had stopped, looking at the cars now inching around her, a lone kingfisher on a dead tree standing in the midst of a flowing river. He walked across to her and said “Would you like to call someone? You need to go to a hospital to get that checked.” Once again she turned and gazed at him blankly.

Looking at his watch, he realized that he was in no way going to reach office early by any standards. He decided to then take the woman to the hospital. He asked her to come with him and started walking to his car only to find that she had not responded at all. He went back and repeated his request only to face the same blank unseeing stare. Finally, he took her hand, grasping it at the elbow and pulled her towards his car. She came, stumbling a little bit. He was at once struck by two things – his hand was on her skin and that she had a very high temperature. It was a mistake to have touched her in the first place. He started feeling uneasy and took his hand away. Thankfully, she followed without stopping. He opened the passenger side door and she got into the car without a complaint. He got in himself and started the car.

Turning around he asked her “Which hospital should I take you to?” Faced with the inevitable lack of response, he started the car and drove on, resolving to drop her off at the hospital a mile ahead. Having rejoined the traffic queue, he crawled on. Intermittently, he sneaked a glance at the woman’s face. She was continuing to gaze out of the windscreen, one hand still holding the car keys he had given her and another hand clutching what appeared to be some papers. One of them slipped and fell near the stick shift and he bent to retrieve it. Something caught his eye and he stopped giving it back. What had caught his eye was the renowned hospital’s name on it. Continuing to steer with one hand, he opened it to face a long list of medical gibberish with values written alongside. Flipping the pages, he came to the last one which ended with an ominous sounding word “POSITIVE”. Feeling intrusive, he glanced at her, only to be reassured that she was still studying whatever it was that caught her eye and held it firm outside the window.

His mind flooded with all sorts of imagined illnesses, alarm bells chiming wildly in every nook and cranny of his head, he related the streak of blood to her high temperature and thought the worst. He rolled down the windows thinking that fresh air would prevent any contagion from spreading and he started trying to accelerate so that he could drop her somewhere and be on his way. He glanced at the first page and read her name “Ms. …….” That blew most of his earlier theories through the open window. He handed back the report to her nerveless hands.

After what seemed like an eternity of trying to move forward, he gave up and resigned himself to the wait in the traffic. He turned to her and asked her where she wanted to go. She seemed to have composed herself to some extent by then and realized where she was. She replied that he could drop her off at the next turn. ‘What about the hospital ?’ he asked. She replied that she had already been to one and was taking medication. He felt a sudden rush of relief that he could drop her and be on his way. As suddenly, he felt guilty for being so relieved to be rid of her so soon. He reached the turn and on a sudden hunch asked her what she would be doing next. She gave him the same blank stare. He noticed her lips dry and cracked, red lines running on the corner where she had bled. Asking her if she had had anything to eat, he was faced with the familiar vacant stare. He decided for some inexplicable reason to stop at the café and get her some breakfast.

At the café, he ordered her a sandwich after getting no reply to his question on what she preferred to eat. She looked the kind who would like coffee and so he got himself and her, a cappuccino. The sandwich laid untouched and the coffee cooling, the silence uncomfortable fifteen minutes later. His coffee cup empty, he stared at it and thought of getting up for a refill when his thought was interrupted by a sob. Here she goes again, he thought. Looking up, he caught an infinite depth of grief in the unseeing eyes. The sob seemed to have escaped her lips which were otherwise tightly compressed into a thin pink line.

“Is there something that I can help you with?” he asked. This time, she looked; he felt that she had really looked, at him. “Excuse me?” she said, as if speaking to him for the first time. It was the first time almost considering the previous exchanges were mere gestures muted by her emotions. A cultured tongue, clear diction and a voice that was as husky as it could possibly be – some of her normal self reasserted itself. Parts of some of his earlier theories followed others that had gone out of the window. He repeated his question. And she took time, seemingly to search for an answer. The eyes were on him but he could see that her mind was furiously working at framing the right response. Normally, he guessed, the answer in terms of a brush off to an intrusive stranger would have come without a pause. But today, the response simply didn’t seem to exist. After a long pause she said “Thanks for all the help so far. I am sorry for the trouble I have put you through.” She opened her mouth to say something else and stopped, visibly shutting herself up. He waited, thinking that it would be best not to interrupt her.

Then she resumed “Could you please help me make a phone call?” He offered his phone and she took it with slightly trembling hands, rising to walk to the far corner of the café which was unoccupied. She called out “It is a long distance call?” And he waved her on. She dialed and waited for the person on the other end to pick up, forehead creasing into a frown as the wait continued. Finally, she said “Papa” and then realized she was too loud and covered her mouth with her other hand and started talking into the phone. He continued to study her surreptitiously. Clothes were not designer wear but were not street either – definitely a person who had a good means of life. And the car she had been driving – if it had not been for the hand brake, she would not have had a problem with it at all – a sedan about 5 years old but of a reputed make. She had the poise and behavior of a person who knew her way around – a career woman. She must have temporarily lost her way.

He remembered that she had a temperature, went up to the counter and asked for directions to the medic and got her some paracetamol. When he returned, she was sitting at the table that they had shared, phone in front of her and eating the sandwich. The coffee cup too looked like it had been drunk from. He offered the paracetamol and she accepted with a thanks. Taking a tablet, she washed it down with the coffee, flinching as she sipped. He started asking her what the problem was when his phone rang, strident and conversation stopping. Office call – asking where he was since there was a meeting at 11:30 AM. He made an excuse about the traffic and said he would be in by then. He then asked her if there was a problem with the coffee. She smiled at that – not a warm, accepting smile but a start and stop of a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She said “It’s nothing.” He pushed, asking her why she flinched when she finally let in “I have bitten my tongue.” So that explained the blood, he thought. Contagion theory went partly out of the window too, but why the high temperature, he thought.

Suddenly he realized that he was being overtly nosey about the whole thing. He did not know who this woman was and where she was from or wanted to go. Why did he want to know all these things about her? He looked at his watch – 10:15 AM – time to go if he wanted to catch the 11:30 AM meeting, he thought. He looked up and saw her studying him much the same way that he had been looking at her earlier. He stood up offering his hand, deciding to end the meeting. She stood up too and half offered her hand. Then suddenly, her face changed, as if she had made a momentous decision. She drew her hand back and asked him “Do you need to go somewhere urgently?” He did not quite know how to respond and mumbled about being late for a meeting. She said, “I don’t quite feel like being alone right now. So, would you like to share the day with me?”

Sudden pictures flooded his mind again as he jumped to the a stupid conclusion about her wanting to sleep with him, stories of women who frame men and then blackmail them rushing to the forefront of his over fertile imagination. Then, cursing his overactive imagination, he thought about what she had said. He felt for the first time in his working life, an urge to skip that meeting and stay here. He put it down to his inordinate inquisitiveness. He found himself saying “I wouldn’t mind”. Then he added “I’d like to.” She smiled, this time the death warmed over act became slightly warmer. The eyes showed a flash. In that moment, her face was transformed – she looked pretty, not just cute but actually pretty and he thought, “My god, she is beautiful.” Automatically, his eyes searched for the ring on the finger. Not finding a band or a solitaire, the boyfriend theory followed the husband to the trash can. He somehow felt pleased about the absence of one. Now why in the world did that please him?

Somehow he started thinking that the medical report that he had seen was someone else’s and that there was nothing wrong with her. Maybe the name on the report was someone else’s? He hesitantly asked her what her name was only to find the pit of his stomach sinking as she confirmed that she was indeed the name on the report. Now what could be wrong with her, he wondered. Should he ask, will she mind, will she tell him - questions tumbled like little stones pouring down with the momentum of a landslide into the empty pit of his stomach. Finally mustering up courage like to recalcitrant schoolboy who had been caught peeking at the girl’s room, he told her that he had seen a medical report in her hand and asked her what it was.

Her reaction surprised him. She became angry. Face flushed, nostrils flaring and a frown creasing her forehead, her eyes sparked with the emotion. The sudden surge of anger told him that this was a woman who did not brook any infringements on her territory. He expected a cold hand me down – a cold water douse on the sparks of his inquisitiveness. For some reason, the brush off never came again. The fire died down, extinguished by a deluge that her reason appeared to have poured over it, the river pouring water on itself. A minute passed while she collected herself and marshaled her thoughts. Then she said in a halting voice “Will you still stay with me if I told you?” Another door hitherto never approached in his mind opened and an endless set of possibilities re-arranged themselves. He steeled himself for what he expected to be the usual story. And he said “Of course”, almost in an automatic answer, politeness taking over, a sudden withdrawal in his mind from the door that had opened partially, inviting him to enter.

I Wish ...

How I wish I could just up and fly,

to anywhere that I see in my mind's eye,

or even wish that I could pass by,

without a care or worry knot to untie,

unbound under the clear cerrulean sky,

soar over puffs of white clouds so high,

and glide down to smell the fields of rye,

wing over the desert sand arid and dry,

on snow capped peaks, hear echoes of my cry,

to be a free bird and never to explain why,

to feel the wind beneath my wings till I lie.

The Flame

How does it feel to stick your hand in a fire blazingly red,

only to feel that it is warm to touch and not a roaring blaze,

and suddenly the blaze turned cool, a touch of blue it bled,

until you feel like pulling your hand out, in a blinded daze.

As you realise this fire burns to a different rhythm and tune,

out of beat from the one that your heart wants to sing to.

The Edge

Here I stand poised and taut at the edge of the world,

the wind rushing in gusts that nearly blow me over,

the world awaiting before me like a green cloth unfurled,

lying for me to ruffle it's feathers, a majestic field of clover.

Should I step back from the edge, back down and submit,

wind my way down the hill, heart filled with regret and what-ifs,

go back to a life of routine and monotony, a numbing vortex of a pit,

succumb to the safe hands of what I know and what is ?

Or should I take that step forward, a leap of blind unseeing faith,

suspended over a nothingness that swoops in to swallow and hold,

into the force that threatens to suck out my soul, leave me a wraith,

feeling as invincible and strong as only an immortal spirit could.

The Wait

He looked around him in the desolate airport, the time beyond the witching hour. He saw the listless faces half sleepy, half irritated but uniformly wishing they were somewhere else rather than in that airport at that time. Outside, the rain was pile driving hard, a white sheet of canvas ready to take on the paints that one would splatter on them. He could barely see outside the window with the sheet of rain creating a bubble which was anything but protecting and soothing, a curtain blanking out the world beyond. Even the adjacent building which housed the next terminus, was only barely visible in terms of the outline, the lights in the windows showing up as a wet pinpoint, bleeding light on the canvas of the rain.

The flight was delayed six hours now. It had been raining since the afternoon and all flights to and from Delhi had got cancelled or re-routed. A number of passengers who had been trying to fly out had given up and gone back home or taken the airline’s advice and checked themselves into nearby hotels for the night. He remembered the newly married couple seated in the row facing his at the lounge. The bride’s mehendi decorated hand heavily laden with bangles that had peeped out from under the pallu of her bright red saree, seeming more like chain links than a celebration around her reed thin wrist, clutching the hand of the  husband and covered reassuringly by his other hand as his head had bent close to hear her and his hair had brushed hers in a touch neither felt.  He had strained to hear the whispers and caught shreds about the building water levels around the airport and how they should probably go to a nearby hotel. They had left soon after. Only brave or stupidly desperate travelers (like him) remained – trying to wait out the rain in the hope that the flights would resume that night.

He thought back to the irate passengers screaming at the lady in charge of the lounge, demanding to know when flights would resume. As if she could predict when the rain would stop better than the weatherman could, to the point of telling them when the flights would take off ! He had watched her smile become more fixed and plastic as time wore out and the passenger’s voices grew more whining and strident almost to the point of shrieking, as if they held her responsible for the rain that spoilt their plans. The passengers’ tempers had frayed and her smile was the barometer that read the level down to a decimal point. After a while, she had given up trying to smile and started nodding politely. That was until that loud mouth had started using French on her – he remembered her reaction distinctly. It was an initial shock – like a mill pond reacting to a stone thrown by a upstart boy – followed by a rush of indignation and then anger – like a volcano had finally found release for the lava seething inside for the past few hours. She had vented it all on him – much like the rain that was pouring outside. The man’s reaction was worth filming – almost like a child had been told to shut up and sit down. He had retreated into his corner and sulked for what seemed like an eternity. He had left the airport shortly thereafter, much to the relief of the rest of them there.

He remembered the elderly couple who must have been in their eighties, the man doddering and the woman loyally rushing to his aid every moment. He had wondered at their love and the bond that had kept them together and so devoted after all these years. They had been a picture of patience – must be all the years of life that gave them the overdose of that medicine. The woman was attentive to every twitch of the old man’s face rushing to get him a tissue, water or something hot. She had even made sure that he ate his meal before she started on hers. She had smiled at the lady in charge of the lounge, addressing her as ‘beti’ and enquiring about status of flights. Her demeanour must have been like a rush of fresh air to the lady herself, harried as she was by the rest of the crowd. She had taken special care of them – and why not, he wondered, finally advising them to leave for home and even getting a cab arranged for them and escorting them out.

Afterwards, when it had been past 10 PM, he remembered the staff trying to bring in food and the way the passengers had rushed them – reminding him of the pictures of the mid day meal scheme in schools when it was launched - a mad rush to grab whatever was brought in, monkeys in the mango orchard. It did not matter whether you got half of a sandwich and the filling had dropped on the floor. It did not matter if the cup contained tea or coffee or even water. People had to grab at whatever was there – almost as if this was the last supply of food in the airport. Then he thought – maybe it was.  With this kind of rain and the number of passengers stranded, there was no way they could have got in more food for another meal. It was actually good that most of the passengers had gone away, more so for the ones who stayed back, if that made any kind of sense.

He looked at the book lying beside him. He had finished reading it within the first two hours of the wait. It had been a long time since he had finished an entire book in one sitting. But this time, there was nothing to interrupt him. He had read it clean from cover to cover and put it down. He had briefly toyed with the idea of going across to the bookstore there and buying another book, found himself lacking the eagerness to tackle another book and had given up. Now, the bookstore had long closed down and he had no choice but to either sit idly or re-read his book, something he had not attempted to do in a long time, though it had been a favorite pastime in his idle youth.

He had then tried to get some work, found himself surprisingly productive and had completely all that he had kept pending for the last week or so in less than an hour. That was including all the to-do and the mails that he had to respond to. He had wished that he had this kind of productivity in the office and had smiled wryly at his own wistfulness. And had remembered the glare he had got from the newlywed husband who had thought he had been smiling at the demure coquettish wife. He had beaten a hasty retreat behind the dog eared newspaper on the seat beside him, realized only seconds later that he was holding it upside down, earning him a giggle from the bride and an even angrier glare from the groom, who then decided to vent it on his wife. Things had gone worse from then on until they had left. He had wished that some nothing-better-to-do inventory had conjured up a seat with a flush and that he had been sitting on one such and that he could simply reach up to and flush himself down the drain.

All that had been three hours ago. The last three had been torturous at the start. There had been a complete lack of anything to do. The TV screens had conked off in the rain and try as the airlines staff might, they did not come back on. For a man who had thought that a minute idle was a minute ill spent, he found himself strangely at an end that was completely loose. He had started walking up and down in the waiting lounge and quickly realized that it was not that big an area at all and that if you passed by the same people thrice in half an hour, they tended to view it almost as an infringement of their personal bubble space. So he had been forced to quickly cut short his walking and retire to his seat, a dog licking its wounds after being kicked rudely in the teeth.

Then a period of intense brooding, almost shutting out the rest of the world, had begun. He had found himself in a complete void of thought, no specific thing in his head that he could hold onto, almost like his mind was in a one of those banging cars at a fun fair which was rebounding off each thought that he encountered without being able to hold onto anything, a blank mind caroming into space. He had been strangely unable to focus on any specific thought or image and hold onto it long enough for him to start thinking more about it or expanding on the subject. It had become so chaotic that his head had started to pound. He had physically put his hand to his head in a bid to ‘steady it’, shaking it from side to side to clear it. Finally, when he had opened his eyes, he found that his neighbors in the lounge had surreptitiously vacated their seats and moved away to other seats a little distance away. So, while he had shut out the rest of the world, the rest of the world had started shunning him. The irony seeped in slowly. To prove to the others that he was still sane and normal, he had walked across to the lady in charge and had asked her loudly what the latest information on the departure situation was. Seeing her strained face, he had however, smiled and apologized and retreated to his “hole in the wall”.

Then he had hit upon quite an interesting game. And that had been to guess who each of the people around him were and what they were thinking. He had started with an old couple sitting diagonally across the lounge, both seemingly in their early sixties, the man dressed in a white suit that seemed uncomfortably tight and polished shoes and the woman dressed in a demure moss green saree with a golden border. The man had sprawled sleeping with his mouth slightly open and the woman sitting with her hand on her cheek, staring into space. He guessed that the old man must have been a civil servant, a convent educated, middle class origin, a man who had spent his life working at a government desk and had retired there, influenced by his bosses and their culture in his aspirations and dress sense. Must have been an arranged marriage where the docile wife from back home in the village stayed at home and looked after the kitchen. Two kids, he had guessed, both having been educated in convents again and maybe a combination of a doctor / engineer (both boys).  Both kids working abroad, he had guessed, parents visiting them once a year. While he had been busy spinning this yarn, the old man had woken up and asked something of his wife  who had then walked across to the lady in charge and asked her in a cultured English as to when she expected the flights to resume. And the husband had then picked a packet of what appeared to be chewing tobacco and had taken a pinch of it between his forefinger and thumb and had tucked it into a corner of his cheek, proceeding to chew in a fashion reminiscent of a ruminating cow going at some regurgitated cud. After a couple of minutes of going at it with gusto, he had started looking around for a place to spit and then proceeded right to the dust bin next to the Café Coffee Day counter and spit right into it, much to the disgust and shock of the girl manning the counter who had not been able to muster anything to say. He had noticed the wife’s expression harden and a few curt words had been directed at the tobacco chewer who chastely retreated to the rest room and had came out with a clean mouth, conspicuously wiping his mouth with a dirty handkerchief that had seen better days. So much for his first attempt at being Sherlock Holmes, he had thought, as his hypotheses had been blown away like a cotton ball caught in a twister. 

 He had tried the same game on the pretty, vacuous lady sitting next to them in a formal pinstriped blue shirt and a dark grey pencil skirt and black shoes with high heels that ricocheted off the floor every time she walked. He had guessed - ambitious career executive, maybe in a bank, a foreign bank, probably a management school graduate. She had been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” and not some pretty fiction written by a popular lady author, legs looked waxed beyond the sheer stockings,  her watch was expensive, the small stones on her earlobes seemed deceptively expensive. After a few minutes of guessing, he had realized that there was no way under the sun that he would be able to figure out whether he had guessed right or wrong. No Hercule Poirot to explain his deduction to the surrounding devoted audience who lapped up his giant sized brain’s amazing powers of reasoning and the culprit’s disbelief at having been caught out at the last moment on the last page of the novel. That had taken the wind out of his sails and left him feeling curiously peevish – like a child who had dropped his lollipop and been told that he cannot get another one.

So, it had been back to his brooding. The mind works in really mysterious ways, seeking avenues of distraction when there is none obviously presented. His thoughts drifted to the trip itself and the sense of foreboding he had felt when leaving for the airport. For a seasoned traveler who had been able to pack and leave at an hour’s notice, he had felt uneasy when packing the previous night and then when he was thinking about going the next morning after dinner with his wife. For some reason, he had not been able to sleep the whole night and had tossed and turned in bed, finally turning off the alarm at 4 AM even before it went off. He had to take a taxi at 5 AM for the trip and though he had packed the previous night, he had been struck by a repeated misgiving. He had felt like checking his packing again and again for something he had missed. He had been searching for one excuse or the other to delay the departure to the airport. He stopped by his sleeping son and spent a good few minutes saying bye. He had even thought of cancelling the trip stating he was sick – his boss would not have said anything. Finally, shaking himself loose, he brushed aside all the nagging worms that threatened to become full blown butterflies in his gut and had got into the taxi for the airport..

The trip itself had been memorable for all the wrong reasons – late flight in (something unusual again), being late for meetings, facing irate clients, stuck with the same sleepless phenomenon across the last three days, having numerous problems with his phone signal, getting shunted out of his hotel room, losing his laptop (and then finding it with the lost and found at the hotel), getting lost on his morning walk …. The list of the things that had not gone his way on this trip was endless. It was like there was a dark cloud that was building up negative event by event and blow by blow culminating finally in this interminable wait at the airport for his return home. He somehow felt that if he got back home and the cycle was complete, he would get back to normalcy. His home, his family, his refuge, his cave hideout. He somehow had to do that.

His thoughts jerked back to the present, ran across the drowsy, irritated faces that stared back as if he was intruding just by looking. Suddenly a commotion rose up as an airline official made his way across the lounge. He was almost mobbed by the passengers seeking more information and demanding to know when the flights would depart. The poor man looked harried to the point of giving up, his shirt half tucked in, his tie crumpled and askew, his pants crumpled as if he had been sleeping in it for the past two days, a stubble on his chin adding to his bedraggled look. He was already bald and if he had not been, this episode would have lost almost all of his hair anyway. The crowd surrounded him with hardly any space left to even gesture or move about. The voices rose, strident and annoyed, raised to the point of anger. It was almost as if they demanded that he should stop the pounding rain outside for a while and get their flight to leave. The poor hapless man retreated as much as he could but soon got fenced in against a wall.

Then the official was almost killed when he finally announced the bad news – that the meteorology department had forecast an intensified rain across the next 24 hours and that the airport had been declared closed. All incoming flights had been diverted to nearby airports where incoming passengers were being given accommodation. For the local passengers, shuttle facilities were being made available to drop them at their residences. For the others, a hotel accommodation was being arranged near the airport so that they could wait out the rain. Anger bubbled over in the passengers and some of them started accusing the official of intentionally delaying their departure from the airport by withholding information. He was captivated by the way their minds arrived at this rationale since the rain continuing and the met office reports were recent developments that the airline or anybody else could not have predicted. The human mind needed a target for transference, he thought. Anything to take the reason external, any one for a target as long as it was not oneself.

He was caught in two minds as the passengers started discussing around him. As he tried to decipher the waves of noise, he found that most of them decided to take the hotel option. Who could refuse a freebie and that too with room service, he thought wryly. The airline official had beaten a hasty retreat by then and had left the directing to a pair of burly security guards who looked as if they could take on the combined temper of the audience for a snack and then move onto the main course. The passengers had to necessarily be polite and ask for directions to the coach for the hotel or the shuttle. A few enquired about their luggage and were told that their luggage was outside the lounge waiting for them to claim it. The crowd started filing out in groups – seeking relative comfort amongst their neighbors. Soon, he realized that he was one of the last few left and that he had not made up his mind. One of the burly guards asked him whether he was planning on taking the shuttle or going to the hotel. Finally, he made up his mind to go to the hotel and hefted his book and his laptop bag and moved out of the lounge. Collecting his overnighter from outside the lounge, he followed the guard’s instructions to go to the coach.

He found that the coach was bursting at the seams but the airline apparently did not have another one and neither did they seem to want to make another trip. So, he squeezed into the coach. Stuck between a fat man with a paunch that seemed like a end stage pregnancy and the side of the coach, he turned to the side – anything to get away from the smell of sweat and that paunch pushing up against him. The rain outside calmed his thoughts even though it was still pounding down. Little streams of rain water cascaded down the side of the coach weaving this way and that as the coach turned and the wind played havoc with the falling water. The streams somehow were cathartic and he felt cleansed and pure in some unknown way as he watched it stream down. His lethargy and numbness left him and he felt positive and energetic for the first time on the trip. Maybe his luck was changing and things would be okay after all.

The trip in the coach was a short one, made shorter by his reverie from which he was rudely awoken as the coach man announced that they had reached and the passengers literally poured out of the coach. It was almost like a beached whale throwing up it’s last meal. Even though he had been close to the door since he was one of the last to enter the coach, he found himself to be one of the last to disembark. The crowd had already descended on the reception and had started haranguing the lady there for their rooms. He stood by waiting for his turn to get a room. People walked off as their rooms were allotted, showing their boarding passes for confirmations. As they neared the last 10-12 people, the hotel official said that there were not enough rooms left and that the passengers would need to share.

Businessmen got paired off and a couple was lucky to get a room to themselves. Finally, there were three of them left - two women and him. One was pregnant, heavily so. She reminded him of the man on the coach.  The other was an old lady who mentioned that she had been travelling to Chennai to visit her daughter who had just had a baby. The hotel official looked at him expectantly as if he had the answer to this problem. The pregnant lady just seemed to have got an attack of pains and she held her bloated stomach and added herself to the line of people giving him expectant looks. The old woman mentioned something about his looking just like her son who was in the US. The emotional overdose was the last straw and he had to fold. It would be inhuman not to. And where would his misplaced sense of chivalry go?

He let the two women take the last room. He then asked the hotel official if he could park himself in the lounge for the night. She hemmed and hawed her way through an explanation looking really apologetic which in short left him understanding that the hotel officials had to use the lounge since they had to stay on and double up for the next shift. His sense of chivalry gave way to a sense of resignation as he asked her where he could spend the night. She politely told him that the airport lounge would be most comfortable. She could arrange for a dinner in the hotel after which he could take the coach back to the airport, she said. He thought about it and decided against dinner. It was already almost 3 PM. Food at this time would not help his acidity prone stomach at all. He asked her for a bottle of water and with it, he made his way out to the lobby with his luggage in tow. There was no sign of the coach whatsoever.

He turned back to see the guard locking up the hotel main doors behind him. He was left with no choice now. It was either stay on the hotel porch all night or find another way to get back to the airport. He thought about how his being nice always got him in trouble.  He looked around for one of the hotel taxis, walking a little bit into the rain which was still pouring buckets. The lawn lights were turned off which made it even harder to see anything beyond a couple of feet with no help from the rain at all. There seemed to be a conspicuous absence of anything that was remotely locomotive in the near neighborhood. By then he had got sopping wet like he had just come out of a pool with all his clothes on.  His luggage was dripping water as well and he looked like the senator that was made a mutant by Magneto, walking out of the ocean and leaving dripping little bits of him on the path.

He trudged onward trying to figure out which way to go for the airport. Suddenly he almost collided with a signpost that pointed to the airport. He turned and headed in that general direction. About 15 minutes later, he started seeing bright lights in the distance, large wet splotches of light that seemed like a beacon, a homing signal for him to move in towards. So he homed, like the moth that went to the flame, literally. His overnighter dragging behind him, the laptop bag seeming to weigh as much as Atlas must have felt, he wondered why the hell he was carrying the bottle of water still. Stopping, he decided to down it and move on.

The road seemed to disappear where he was, turning sharply to the right. He left his luggage on the road and walked to the edge to see what was there. He almost fell off as the edge cut off on a sharp sandy decline. The drop seemed to go on a long way, much more than the poor light could show him. He stood there, shaking his head at the near miss and then suddenly felt thirsty. He opened the bottle of water and threw his head back to drink. While the water was pouring down this throat with blessed relief, he saw a streak of light shooting across the sky. Momentarily distracted, he followed it’s trajectory like tracing a moonbeam on a wet windscreen, leaving a shining path of light behind it.

The driver of the coach was tired and sleepy after having made multiple trips the whole day. The airline had got a call from the hotel that a passenger wanted to go back to the airport and so he had been rudely woken up and asked to make a last trip for the day. He drove almost on automatic as he knew every twist and turn on the road like the back of his palm, almost nodding off back to sleep. Ah! There was the sharp turn, but since there was sure to be no traffic, he allowed himself to take it wide straying to the wrong side of the road. As he rounded the bend, he heard a thud of something that his vehicle hit and stepped on the brakes. The coach screeched to a halt and he jumped out of the driver’s cabin and ran around to the other side. To his horror, he saw a big red mark on the left front of the coach. He ran back down the road for about 20 meters, the rain making it difficult to see anything. He almost tripped over the body as it lay face first on the ground.

The impact was more of a surprise than anything else. He almost felt no pain at first. The fact that there was a vehicle on the roads at that time was so much of a surprise and the fact that it was on the wrong side of the road added to the element of shock. The pain came after he landed with a thud, his flight rudely cut short like a bird hit by an air gun pellet, the body crumpling on impact. He thought that it had finally come down to this, his whole eventful trip which had been a series of mishaps strung together with the sense of foreboding. His thoughts went back to his wife and son as he wondered if he could call them on the phone to let them know. He wanted to move his hand but discovered that he could not get it to move at all. The darkness was like a blanket that was settling down on him, a cold numbing darkness that seemed to seep into his very bones with a chill that set his teeth chattering. His skin felt curiously clammy and cold like it was in some way not connected to his body but draped over it. A mist of red came over his eyes and he realized that he was dripping blood from his ears and nose. He heard someone running across to where he lay. As the footsteps came closer, he sank into the blackness that seemed to beckon like an oasis in the desert. His last thought was that he had waited all night and acted like a nice guy for the last time.  Nice guys finish last ….