The Talisman - Part 1

Ananya hadn’t always been like this. She had been a free spirit who had just flown where she wanted to and done what she wanted to, ever smiling like the sun that came out every morning and as colorful as the rainbow. Then life had started to change around her when her parents were taken away from her in a car crash. Life then started disintegrating, one crack at a time, spreading and widening like the aircraft window one sees in movies cracking up at high altitude. Until it finally resembled an intricate spider’s web where there was nothing other than the crazed windshield through which she could hardly see the life she was driving through.

Now she read the daily horoscope to decide what she would wear, passed everyone through a Linda Goodman security check and crossed her fingers and toes when she wanted something to happen, apart from avoiding elevators and cats. She had grown used to blaming herself for most things that went wrong and invariably the bread would fall and when it did, it would fall on the buttered side wouldn’t it? Her life was full of the expectation of the next thing that would go wrong and how she always knew it was going to happen and why she couldn’t have stopped it because it was written in the stars.

That bright summer morning was no different. She stubbed her toe on the bed as she walked to the bathroom and then chipped her coffee cup as she set it down in a hurry, couldn’t get her hair dryer to work and ended up walking out the front door with her hair feeling like straw and having a sneaky suspicion that she looked like a scarecrow. A minor scrape with an auto and two stumbles on the pavement brought her to the train station where she usually caught the 7:30 morning local to work. As with every morning, she stood apart from the early crowd that was coming onto the platform, in her own corner, back to a pillar and her earphones piping her favorite John Mayer acoustic version of Free Fallin’.

It was then that the gaggle of college girls landed on the platform like a swarm of bees and buzzed around as badly. A few elbows and legs later, she gave up trying to hold onto her position and backed into a corner. The train blared its horn as it swished into the station platform, the doors sliding open. She tried to avoid the swarm of bees and then started following them into the train. She saw the doors starting to slide shut and hurriedly took a step to get in, only to step onto someone else’s raised heel. Arms and legs flailing like the windmills that Don Quixote battled against in vain, she fell, hoping to land inside the train but glanced back and saw the platform rising to meet her. Fully expecting her luck or lack of it to hold good, she closed her eyes, only to be jerked to a stop by a pair of hands that caught her around the waist.

The wind driven out of her like a pair of bellows on full squeeze, her eyes opened with a start. She was pulled back up from behind and she used her hands and legs to good use to get herself back into a standing position. She turned around and met a pair of smiling eyes, and a mouth full of teeth. A voice from somewhere below the eyes said, “Are you OK?” But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the eyes enough to answer. Finally, she woke from her hypnotic trance and blabbed a yes. The crowd was a little too thickly packed and she found that she had no room to move away from the stranger. She muttered a thank you to the stranger who was dressed in a suit and looked like he worked in a bank.

He got lost almost immediately in what appeared to be a wall of clothes with hands, legs and an occasional face holding it up. The brief exchange left her completely unnerved and very shaky. She hardly got her bearings when she realised that the next train was coming in. She felt sure that she was going to miss this one too and get late for work. However, as the train pulled in, everyone seemed to be keen to get in through one of the other doors of the train, leaving the one that she was standing opposite, quite empty. She almost strolled in and then nearly stepped off when the same pair of smiling eyes greeted her on the train. Managing to hold onto a hand rail like it was a buoy that kept her afloat in a stormy sea; she tried to turn her back to him.

She soon found that staring into the face of the man standing opposite was distinctly less pleasing than looking at those smiling eyes. Turning back, she was greeted with a look that almost said, “I told you so”. He was talkative to the dozen while she could barely make the right noises and soon she learnt that his name was Ritvik, he lived close to where she did and worked at a multinational bank in the central business district. Despite his repeated attempts to learn something about her, she remained a closed book, refusing to give off even dust from its covers.

She got off the train at her usual stop and he waved bye from inside, the familiarity coming easily to him. She nodded her head and smiled and walked towards the escalator. It was then that it hit her – she had actually not fallen that morning when usually she would have been picking herself and her things off the floor. She thanked her lucky stars and the stranger a little more fervently and walked the short distance to work. Caught as she was in the threads of her thoughts about the morning and her escape as she wove and unwove them, she didn’t even notice that she had walked onto the road in front of the cab but miraculously didn’t get hurt. The elevator was waiting for her just as she walked in and the coffee in her cup didn’t splash on her like it usually did. It was a great morning after all!

Towards evening, her luck went back to normal. Her hard disk crashed and the pitch she was making to the client disappeared along with it. A few hasty chart paper hand outs and a near disaster with a half empty cup of coffee later, her head was pounding like some prison inmates were on hard labour inside her head. Taking a couple of dispirins, she walked out of office. A near claustrophobic death trap of an elevator and a scraped elbow from saying hello to the curb at close quarters later, she found herself on the train back home. The train ride itself was uneventful, thank goodness and she walked back to her apartment. As she reached the front door, she remembered that she had left her bag on the train.

Cursing her luck, she almost gave up, breaking down in tears in sheer frustration. She trudged down the stairs of her apartment with no hope of ever finding her bag again, thinking of all the calls she would need to make to cancel her cards and her phone and everything else. As she walked back in slow defeated steps towards the train station, she had a feeling it was going to be a long night. The tears of frustration seeped out of her in small bursts as she rounded the bend in the road towards the station.

Then she saw Ritvik sitting on the steps, doing something on his phone and for some insane reason, her anger peaked and she wanted to hit out blindly at him. Walking up, she said in her best sarcastic tone, “So, you had no place to go and nothing to do, so you’re sitting here and catching up on work?”  He looked up, the initial smile in his eyes disappearing at her words like a curtain that just drew shut. He said nothing, just handing her something. She saw that it was her bag and wanted to eat her words, slowly, painfully, letter by letter. She stood there, clutching her bag in her hand as he just stood up and walked away. Half of her screamed to run after him and apologize and the other half was still chewing cud at her words. As she stood there feeling like the lowest of the low, the icing on the cake just appeared and it started to rain.

The next few days went by as disastrously as ever, everything seeming to go wrong in every possible way. The zodiac predictions foretold a turbulent week ahead as if she didn’t know. She searched for Ritvik every morning and evening on the train but could find no trace of him. It was almost as if he disappeared from the face of the earth after that one fateful day when he saved her - twice. Life seemed to go from bad to worse as her sister fell sick and she had to leave town. She spent over a week back at her home town nursing her back to health. Somehow, life took a whole different shape when she was at home, in her own world, her comfort zone. The routines were easy to get into, the comfort of the normal and the lack of expectations. The simple life overtook her, laying all her anxieties and worries to rest. The peace and quiet of it all lulled her into thinking that it was all fine.

She returned to her normal schedule after the 2 week break, coming in on the weekend to clean up her apartment and set it right. And the jinx came back again, painfully intense. First the plumbing at home had stopped up. And the electricity was off; she had forgotten to pay her bill before she left. The stuff in the fridge had gone completely rotten and to boot, the maid did a disappearing act. She spent most of the day chasing the electrician and the plumber and what was left of it cleaning out the fridge and the rest of the house. She ordered in some Chinese and was eating it sitting on the floor of her balcony, gazing out at the stars. As she walked back indoors, her foot struck something that went half flying across the room and she realized it was her bag, the one that Ritvik had rescued. The thought of him brought a sigh to her lips, as she wished for the millionth time that she had not said what she had.

She wandered down to the nearby hypermarket to fill up on supplies and escaped with a minor mishap in the ketchup section and a split 5 kg sack of wheat flour that was partly on the floor and partly on her. As she waited her turn at the cash counter which seemed to have miraculously filled up just as she had come to it, she suddenly saw Ritvik enter the store. She first did what she usually did, turning her face away and ignoring him, letting her discomfort at meeting him rule over everything else. Then, her better sense prevailed and she walked out of the queue, hearing the murmur about “mad woman” behind her and not caring. She caught up with him at the fruits section. She stood waiting for him to finish selecting bananas. He seemed to be taking an inordinately long time over it, examining them from every angle and smelling them only to drop them back. After a couple of minutes of waiting for his expert selection, her patience ran out and she called out “Ritvik”.

The bunch of bananas dropped to the floor with a soft plop as he turned towards her, his eyes showing that he expected something similar to last time, guarded, like the gates would close in an instant at the slightest sign of trouble. Her tentative “Hi” did nothing to make it any better. Finally, she offered to help him out and after initially refusing, he agreed and they walked in silence, picking the bananas, then the tomatoes and then the yoghurt. He picked his coffee and she asked him how he managed to like percolator coffee. That got him opened up a little bit and the explanation came out a little shaky but did come out nonetheless. When they finally got to the cash counter, it was idle and they checked out quicker than she could have believed possible. As they walked out, bags in hand, the evening had turned from the muggy heat blanket that it had been to a cool, moist breezy interlude with a growing twilight peppered with bright twinkles. He asked if she lived close by and when she told him, they decided to just walk back. There wasn’t any conversation for a while; just the silence and the company of stars.

He walked her home and then smiled at her and said goodbye and left. And that was just it. It was just right. No words said, no gestures, nothing required. She found a lady waiting outside the door and on enquiring, found that she wanted to offer her services as a maid. Deciding to hire her from the next day, she let herself in and breathed a sigh of pure unadulterated relief as the lights came on with the flick of the switch. Making herself a quick fix dinner of noodles, she caught herself humming a strange tune and smiled at herself. Dinner was distracted, her thoughts wandering and scattered like a flight of doves at feed time. Even her favourite show on TV failed to hold her interest. Sleep was difficult to come as an unnamed anxiety held her captive and she kept waking up.

Rising early after giving up on her attempts to sleep, she held her tea cupped in both hands as if she were offering it to the Sun God who was just making his presence felt on the horizon. The cool morning breeze calmed her down and she breathed in deep and unhurriedly. As she got ready for work that morning, she felt light and unburdened, as if some weight had been lifted off her and she was now free. She reached the train station in time and she stood there, her eyes searching. As much as she hated to admit to herself, she was looking forward to seeing Ritvik that morning. Not having seen him anywhere along the way, she was getting impatient. The 7:30 was just pulling into the platform when a tug at her hand made her turn and she caught those smiling eyes again and despite herself, began smiling back.

Valentine at Sunset

He woke up with a start, his heart filled with a nameless fear, almost kicking out to free himself from the clutches of whatever it had been that had been pulling him into the dark pool. Gasping for breath, he could smell her and moved closer, nuzzling her neck and the soft hair there, her smell like a balm that soothed him instantly. Instantly, almost instinctively, she reached back and pulled his hand into hers and clutched it close to her cheek like always. His hand lay there, entwined in hers, her warm breath breezing onto his skin, breathing life into him. She moved even closer to him if that was possible, their bodies a perfect fit. Slowly, a smile curved his lips and he closed his eyes, drifting off into sleep, lulled by her warmth.

The alarm went off and he woke with his nose right in the curve of her neck. Kissing her soft skin, he tried to remove his hand from hers but she only clutched him harder. He just laid there, her grayish white hair brushing his cheek. From this close, he could see the fine lines in her skin, the only evidence of her age. She shifted in her sleep, her breath escaping in a gasp from her lips and his fingers were loosened in her clasp. He slowly withdrew them from her, stiffening an instant as she shifted in her sleep and slowly rose out of bed. Walking to the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror. Dark eyes, still a semblance of sharpness in them, stared back at him. Eye lashes now completely silver and his chin peppered in white, his hairline now far back from his forehead, hair all pure white and scanty. Crow’s feet lined his eyes and a series of wrinkle dimples lined his cheeks from the corners of his mouth to his ears, dancing in series when he smiled.

He made his own coffee, a ritual for the past lifetime of his, and made his way past the living room and opened the door to a brilliant sunrise. Their house was the one that they had always dreamed about, on a hill, facing the sun rise and surrounded by a plantation and a farm. The best thing about it was the mornings when he could sit on his doorstep and see the sun come up over the hill. Everything about the house was still and silent, sleeping waiting for the dawn. He sat on the top step as always, legs spread and holding the coffee cup in both hands, letting the warmth seep into him. As he drank the first sip, the rush overtook him as always and he settled down into his absent minded stare as the sun peeped over the hill. Halfway through his cup, he heard her light footsteps behind him and then smelt her presence. She came around and took her position on the step just below the one that he sat on, between his legs, her head resting as always on his right knee. He leaned forward and kissed her hair and they just sat there staring at the sunrise. The town came alive below them in a while and soon after, the maid came home as their daily routine started.

The plantation work started thereafter, the head stayed at the farm in a small building some way away from their home while the farm hands came in every morning. They reviewed the progress on the crops and she spent time with their cattle, brushing them and taking care of their feed. It was immensely satisfying, the life they led. It had always been their dream to give up the big city life that they each had, their successful careers and simply come away to the back of beyond where they had only each other and the life they built for themselves. There was nothing material about the life they led, a far cry from what they once had. But there was nowhere that they would rather be now.

In a couple of hours, they made their way down, hand in hand, walking down the trail towards the town. Towards the small building that housed the other part of their dream. The building was divided into two parts, one where there was an open floor and a number of mats for sitting and another where there was a black board and study tables. The open floor was hers, where she taught boys and girls a variety of craft and art ranging from simple sketching to pottery and candle making. The class room was his, where he taught the children basic subjects like English, Science and Math. He opened the gate and they made their way into their areas and prepared for the day ahead. Shortly, they heard the gaggle of the children as they made their way to the building and then settled down to their routine. Breaking for lunch, they had the usual quick lunch where they talked about how the kids were coming along and specific problems they were facing.

Winding down in the late afternoon, they both walked down to the park. It was another daily routine of theirs to spend the evening at the park, their bench as always saved for them. They sat there as the tea vendor brought them hot cups of ginger tea, sipping and watching the sun go down. Words were not always required. Their silent understanding was born from the numerous fights and battles they had had, learning about each other from every one of them. Their life together had never been easy, the ups and downs far more than the plateaus of happiness. And every such up or down had brought them closer to each other, to a level of shared understanding that didn’t need words or gestures.

And they wound the evening walking back to their home, up the hills past the sheep and goats that were getting back to their pasture. The glow of the sunset lit up everything in an orange halo, even the dust from their feet showing orange yellow. Dinner was always simple, the routine set to music of her choice. It was always in the living room, with both of them sitting on the floor, legs tucked under or crossed, talking to each other. They had always been able to talk to each other, sometimes for hours on end, about anything at all under the sun. Post dinner, the ritual was a walk in the garden, hand in hand, listening to the crickets chirp and go silent at their arrival and start again once they passed.  She stopped often to spread out a flower or to smell it, lifting a leaf or sometimes just brushing them with her fingers. He was content just to walk with her, holding her hand, smiling at her gestures and answering her questions at times. They retired to the patio where he would sit against the pillar and read while she would listen to the music, her head in his lap as they lazily talked their way into the night.

And thus their life went, not much of a variation in it unless they travelled, which they did once in a half year. They had looked forward to this life so much that they wanted to live each day of it to the fullest. Their lives together had not always been this peaceful and easy, they had not always been this understanding of each other. But the need for each other and the realization of this had come with each time that they had nearly walked away from each other or had broken apart. The bond had grown stronger and what had been two strong separate pillars had slowly broken down to become a beautiful arch whose both ends supported and strengthened each other.

But it looked like the gods weren’t happy with their peace and trouble came into paradise a few weeks later. It was just another morning when he woke up, his face buried in her hair and his nose nuzzling the back of her neck, his fingers clutched in hers, right next to her cheek. The only difference was that his fingers were cold, clammy cold, like he had dipped them in a bucket full of ice water that had stayed out in the freezing cold over night. He woke with a start and tried shaking her awake. Her heart was beating like an express train going crazy. She didn’t come awake and he dialed the town’s only doctor who came by on his scooter, rasping and groaning up the hill. An injection brought her around and the doctor got her sitting up in bed in a short while. He told them it was nothing, just a weakness induced fainting episode. She felt ravenously hungry after that, like she could eat a whole horse and they pigged out for breakfast, forgetting about it completely. But the cloud had appeared and started to move over the sun. She couldn’t walk that day and so they didn’t go down to the school or for the sunset. She recovered though in a couple of days but he could feel that she had slowed down, the springiness in her walk a little less, the smile in her face a little slow, the brightness in her eyes a little dull.

Monsoon came in a few months, the hills drenched in rain that poured in like a giant tap had opened in the sky and someone had forgotten to close it. The sheets of rain ran down like new rivers finding their way down to the sea, sometimes taking with them entire plants that had got washed loose. New rivulets and new creeks came up every day. He hated it when it was like this, dull and grey and cloudy. Like someone had forgotten to turn on the lights in the evening. The constant rain made it worse, even the furniture felt damp. Everything smelt wet or felt wet, like a kid having left it’s hand and foot prints all over the place. Everything seemed to slow down just like you found it difficult to move in a pool of water. And so it was on that particular day, it started later than normal with his coffee on the verandah disrupted by a particularly heavy shower which left him in a bad grouchy mood. She couldn’t get out of bed that day, feeling particularly like “sleeping in” as she called it. The day went by, slow and sticky. Towards afternoon, she got irritable, in a way that reminded him of their big fights years ago. He tried reasoning with her but couldn’t get through to her at all and finally just settled down to hold her close and calm her, comfort her. Suddenly, he felt her tears, hot and wet on his shirt front. Holding her face in his hands, searching for the reason for her tears, he was stopped short by her words, “Don’t leave me alone”. He kissed her quiet and they just sat there silently like that.

Night came quickly then, the rain a steady downpour that beat an unsteady rhythm that didn’t disappear but kept intruding into their togetherness, causing a discomfort that wouldn’t fade away. He held her close that night, a nameless fear that gnawed at his heart and made a hole in the pit of his stomach. He kept checking on her through the night, unable to sleep himself until the early hours of the morning when he could see the gray in the sky as light made its way across the sky. It was then that he dropped off, out of sheer exhaustion. He woke up to the sun streaming in through the window, cutting sharply like a blade through the dull darkness of the room. It fell across her face, diagonally, from one temple down her front to her hip, like a sharp blade that had sliced her and revealed an inner core of light. It was then that he noticed that her lips weren’t parted like she usually slept but were pinched shut as if by force. His eyes widened in alarm as he moved close to her, only to feel that her chest wasn’t moving at all. The blade of light caught a strand of her hair as it lifted up in a breeze and settled down over her eyes and across her nostril. He sat there for what seemed like forever, willing the strand to move with her breathing, his heart waiting with his held in breath.

The doctor came sometime later and told him that it was something about her heart that had gone weak, something to do with age. He was numb then, unfeeling like a piece of wood that had gone dead inside and didn’t show outside. He just sat there on the verandah, his back to the pillar, having forgotten everything and everybody there. The whole town came to pay their respects, all the children that they had taught came with sadness in their eyes that they didn’t quite understand. The day passed on with rituals of some sort or the other. He felt quite removed from it all, like he was standing and watching it happen to someone else. When it was finally over, she had gone and he couldn’t quite understand how. He went for days without sleeping or eating, unable to follow the routines that he was so used to but without her.

He came together like a new man three days after she had passed. Got out of bed where he had spent the night not sleeping, and showered and dressed, walked out of the door to the farm. He spent the morning talking to the farm hands and the chief about the damage that the rains had done and what repair they could do. He then went down to the school and spent the day with the children, who couldn’t quite understand why he was so normal that day after not having appeared for the past three. He finished up school as usual and walked down to the park. He sat down at a different bench that day, on the side of the pond, not facing the hills. He felt tired, like he had been on a long journey and now, at the end of it, was exhausted to the bone. But there seemed to be no one that could help him with it, he had to make this journey alone. And he realized that he couldn’t do it at all, not even for one more day.

It was there that they found him the next morning, a dove sitting on the bench next to him, the dew drops clinging to his lashes and his hair like pearls, reflecting the sun that was just coming out. His eyes were shut but there was a faint smile on his face and a sense of peace as if he had found something. His right hand clutched a red rose, from one of the bushes in the park, its thorn having pricked his hand. But the bleeding had long stopped, long before his heart had. He had gone to join her they said, for he couldn’t live without her and that was why he was smiling, because he was going to her, where his rightful place was.

Memory

A blessed mind’s eye that records freeze frames and etches them in a film one can’t find,

and stores them in an order and a fashion that no digital bank can even hope to match,

a retrieval that is triggered by a mere sight, a sound or even a whiff of a smell in the wind,

that brings back every single minute detail, of the reality that once was, a perfect match.

A boon to some who treasure those moments of their lives that have touched them deeply,

memories of a childhood free from care or worry, enthusiasm unbridled, curiosity ever ready,

a flush of firsts in the journey thus far, each memorable and momentous, defining us completely,

and the disappointments that have balanced, crushing in defeat, leaving us unbalanced, unsteady.

There are those of us who choose to live amongst these freeze frames, considering them current,

preferring this alternate to reality itself, choosing instead to stick to the comfort of the known,

choosing to see every situation through the lens of what has been, past interpreting the present,

stuck in reverse gear, ever moving backward with each step forward, in company or all alone.

And some of us choose to look the other way, preferring the bustle of our drone like existence,

and it’s routines that give us the comfort and security that we desperately seek and are slaves to,

until we are in a curious state of limbo where the mind’s purpose dissolves, vanishing in the distance,

and then it seeks the secure, a small trigger taking it back, recreating a picture that only it knew.

Sometimes, it is only in the unbound, uncontrolled freedom of sleep that the mind goes hunting,

searching for a memory and fusing it with its deepest desires and transforming it into a dream,

letting you live in a parallel world that it created, an indulgent prospect, otherwise too daunting,

unsecured by reality’s constraints, it’s questions deliberately unanswered, a new born stream.

Some memories haunt, terrifying in their persistence and relentless in their pursuit of your mind,

try as you might to erase them, no wipe and no reset button could ever kill that indelible print,

and every once in a while, as life’s river flows on placidly, under the surface whips an eddy blind,

raising up a ghost that would not stay buried, a restless spirit that appears at the slightest hint.

And there are those who lose every precious moment, the mind flitting like a sprightly butterfly,

unable to sift through what the eyes see, what the mind perceives, running down a confusing maze,

until all seems to pass as transient visions, the strongest are the only ones that they now swear by,

built in the games of childhood, even these fade away, as the mind burns itself out in a brilliant blaze.

And so it is that every one of us comes back like the hands of the clock itself, turning full circle,

reliving life itself in a flashback, folding back on itself like a wrinkle that shall never fully pass,

never grateful for that beautiful memory that comes sweeping back instantly at beck and call,

until it is all gone, every last grain seeping out through the hole at the bottom of the hour glass.

The Domino Effect - Part 3 - Reaching Out (Part 3 of 3)

It was the time of the drought, days dry and bothersome, with a wisp of a wind that blew mud into one’s face. Nikhil went into this like a man who has been beaten down, shoulders drooping with the weight of his disappointment, not really clear why he was disappointed in the first place. He faced the bother of the drying up of his expectations and hopes, wilting in the harsh sun of reality, burnt to a crisp and then blown away by the mere wisp of the wind that scattered the last grains of sand on the coffin that carried his happiness. He became a complete automaton, moving mindlessly through his routine, as efficiently as he ever was, in fact more than ever. His eyes downcast and his feet shuffling as he made his way from day to moronic day.

He made sure that he did not bump into Sanaa again, avoiding any possibility of meeting her. He came in early into office, often taking the stairs and left very late, when the building was completely deserted. Her phone calls and messages went unanswered, methodically deleted, almost as if he was erasing the temptation to call or write back. Once or twice, he saw Sanaa coming into his office, obviously searching for him. He almost ran away, afraid to face her, somehow terrified at the prospect of a further reality check. One day, he passed by the coffee shop and saw her with Mark, heads bent towards each other and she suddenly burst into laughter. Feeling guilty, almost as if he was spying on her, he hurried away but not before she saw him and stopped laughing, waving at him with an enthusiasm he simply did not feel. He nearly ran away and it took days for him to put the shadows of that memory behind him.

And then one day, he saw her. It was his usual late hour, the building deserted and almost completely dark. As he made his way across the foyer to the main doors where the security patiently waited to lock up after him, he saw a movement in the shadows. She came out of the darkness, like a wraith floating towards him. For some moments, he thought that his countless imaginary visions had come to life, somehow given life by his desperation. But he soon realized that this was real, she wasn't smiling like the visions, in fact her eyes were troubled and worried but determined. As if she had resolved to face him that day no matter what. He dropped his eyes, afraid to look, afraid that he might show more than he wanted to reveal. He continued walking, pretending she was not there, until her voice stopped him in his tracks, cold and haunting. He waited, frozen and unable to move, until she came to his side. As she stood next to him, a sliver of light fell across her face, bringing a radiance that rivaled even his imagination.

He stood, trembling like the victim waiting for the axe to fall, until she touched his hand haltingly. His arm suddenly seemed to warm up, as if drawing warmth from her touch. He forgot all else and his focus zeroed in on the spot where her fingers lightly lay, just above the wrist. It seemed like forever before she spoke. She simply said his name “Nikhil …” and waited. He suddenly realized that he had been holding his breath from when she had touched him and exhaled slowly, afraid that a sudden breath would make her disappear. There was pain in her voice, a tentativeness that seemed to reach out and touch his dry and dusty heart. But his nerves were stretched taut to the point of breaking and somewhere between his heart and stomach; a hollow pain started that deepened with every passing moment. He could neither find the voice to reply nor a gesture that would suffice. He simply stood there, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. Finally, the pain in his stomach grew to the point where he was going to fall and he broke contact and moved towards the door, leaden feet dragging behind one another. As he stepped outside the door and drew a deep breath, the pain seemed to catch in his chest, sharpening to a point that seemed to pierce right through him and he fell to the floor, his eyes seeing an ink pool of blackness that was spreading by the second.

He woke up on the sofa in the office lounge, Sanaa peering over him with a mug of water, suddenly aware that his entire face and clothes seemed to be soaking wet. A couple of the security guards were hanging in the background, anxiously looking at him. A grin appeared on their faces as soon as his eyes opened and they retreated, happy to be back in safe territory at the main door. Sanaa looked white as a sheet, terrified at what, he was afraid to even guess. At his eyes opening, she sat back, just looking at him, a slight smile turning up the corners of her mouth and wrinkling her eyes at the edges. That smile somehow seemed to say it all and he found himself smiling back. Her hand somehow found itself in his and they simply sat there, hand in hand until a cough at the door broke them apart guiltily. The security guard had come to ask them if they would be going home and that broke the moment. Reality came flooding back like a tidal wave that destroyed their castle of sand.

Memories of the past, that day at the coffee shop and the sense of betrayal that he had felt at what happened, flooded in and his face clouded up. He became stiff and formal, almost wanting to put some distance between them. Thanking her for the help, he asked her if she would find her way home. He could see that his politeness was drilling into her. Something similar to pain showed in her eyes and her lips quivered with an unstated emotion. She did not reply and simply turned and walked away. Nikhil wondered why he felt like he had just turned down the best thing that could have happened to him when just a moment ago, self preservation had dictated his actions. He made his way home, thoughts in a whirl going round and round, running and re-running the past hour in his mind like an editor searching for a vital flaw in a shot. From any angle that he saw it, he realized that he had deeply hurt Sanaa. As he ran the events over and over in his mind, a curious interpretation took hold of his mind as he began to think of her meeting with him as a way of simply ending their so called ‘friendship’. A troubled and sleepless night ensued and a distraught and mind-weary Nikhil found himself at the doors of the lift the next morning.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Sanaa coming towards the lift and turned, somehow hoping that she would have forgotten the incident and would be willing to make amends. But it was not to be. She saw that he was there and without breaking stride, moved towards the stairs. Nikhil sank further into the morass he had dug for himself, his confused mind blaming her for all that was happening but at the same time, feeling like he was the lowest of the low microbes that existed on the planet, a bane to all life. He could not focus on anything at all that day and for the first time in his neat and disciplined life, he made a row of mistakes at work. The last straw came when during a presentation, the figures that he had furnished were simply wrong. His boss, quick to anger, but never at him so far, rose to the occasion fabulously calling him a string of names that sent everyone in the room scurrying out like a pack of rats when the light is switched on in the kitchen.

Nikhil walked back to his office on numbed feet, mentally and physically dragging himself there. Once in, he simply sat there, shell shocked that he had let something like this happen to himself. His thoughts whirled from childish revenge on his boss to his shame at having to face all his colleagues the next day. He groaned and put his head down on his hands, wishing that he would just wake up from what seemed to be the worst nightmare of his life. Moments passed and all noise seemed to be receding when suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Sameer put his head in and asked ‘I brought some coffee. Would you want some?’ Nikhil could not refuse and he found himself sipping on the sweet dilute coffee of the office, staring at some insignificant speck on his desk.

Sameer broke the silence again and asked, ‘What’s happening to you, Nikhil?’ And instead of following this up with a comment or further questions, he just let the question hang in the air between them, thick with the tension of uneasiness. Nikhil remained silent for some time, unsure of how to answer and then just when he was about to make a polite statement that nothing was the matter, Sameer added, ‘It’s about Sanaa isn't it?’ Nikhil looked up at that, eyes staring crazily like the boy who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. After a couple of denials which were politely but insistently brushed aside, Nikhil’s defense broke and he simply asked Sameer, ‘What should I do?’ Sameer’s only reply to that was to ask him if he felt that Sanaa was worth all of what he was going through. Nikhil instantly rose to her defense without being aware about it, talking about how great and genuine a person she was and how she was the best thing that could have happened to him. He finally stuttered and stammered to a halt when he saw Sameer smiling at him. Sameer’s only reply was, ‘So, if that’s how you feel about her, then why are you doing this to yourself?’

Nikhil’s insecurities and worst fears came to the fore and he explained how she was friends with Mark and how she was laughing and chatting with him. He continued about how she had come the day before and how she had tried to put an end to their friendship. At this, Sameer stopped him and simply asked how he knew what she had come for. Nikhil’s mind had reasoned this out completely the previous night and he launched into his argument, like the prosecutor who knows that he is going to nail his witness. When he finished, Sameer asked him, ‘If she had come to end it all, then, why would she have been sitting by your side when you woke up and why would she have held your hand?’ Nikhil found that he was unable to answer and stared down at the speck on his desk, wishing that it would somehow open up and swallow him, as realization once again took hold of him. Sameer went on patiently explaining how it could have been that Sanaa had come to clear up their misunderstanding and to make sure they were back to their normal selves. And then finally, Sameer asked, ‘What is it that she means to you anyway, that you are so tied up in knots about this?’

Nikhil could not reply, searching for words to express how he felt and failing miserably to find a normal way to explain it. After a few minutes of the desperate silence, Sameer said, ‘If she means that much to you then shouldn't you be reaching out to her? To tell her how you feel and to make amends for the hurt you caused her last night?’ He continued, ‘Sometimes, all that it takes to mend a break or a crack is the right word and more importantly the right gesture. But then, you have to reach out and make sure that you are heard or seen. If the both of you remain miserably locked up in your own worlds, then you will probably lose her for life. Is that something you could live with?’ A few minutes later, Sameer left, restating the need for Nikhil to do something about the situation. Nikhil sat there, thinking about all that he had heard. The more he thought about it, the one thing that he grew more and more convinced about was that he could not stand losing Sanaa.

Suddenly finding a resolve that bordered on madness, Nikhil stood up and went out of his room. He made his way across the cubby holes, oblivious to the whispers about his “bad day” and the “hiding” he had got. He walked, nearly ran up the stairs to Sanaa’s floor. He walked into the area of the office where she usually sat. Not finding her there, he asked and found that she was in a meeting. He debated waiting and finally, walked towards the conference room. He stood before the door of the conference room, hand raised to knock, when the door suddenly opened and she stood there, a file in hand, hair in disarray, as if she had been running her hands through it. Her eyes widened in shock on seeing him there and she simply stood rooted to the spot. Nikhil on the other hand, went through a transformation at the sight of her. The sun came out from behind the clouds and for the first time that day, it felt like a beautiful day. They stood there, just looking at each other, when from behind her, a chorus of voices asked to be excused out of the conference room. They simply stood to one side while the room emptied itself out.

A couple of the people who came out stared at Nikhil questioningly. But he simply smiled in return without offering any explanation for why he was there. And they had to simply move on. In a few moments, the conference room was empty and Nikhil gestured to Sanaa for them to move into the room. Shutting the door behind him, Nikhil started ‘I am sorry …’ only to get cut short by her ‘I am sorry …’ They broke into laughter at that, the same shared laughter of what seemed like eons ago. Nikhil finally stopped and simply held out his hand. Sanaa stopped laughing and stared at his hand for a few moments and then looked back into his eyes questioningly. She saw him smiling still, a man who had finally found the answer to the question that had been bothering him, his quiet confidence speaking more than words could. And she simply put her hands into his, like it was always meant to fit there, just like that. 

The Domino Effect - Part 3 - Reaching Out (Part 2 of 3)

Those days when Sanaa was away, Nikhil changed. In a way that was more than noticeable. His normally calm and shy self metamorphosed into an irritable, snappy and weird character that people started to avoid. When she returned, his change back was noticeable. People actually saw him smiling in his shy unassuming way. In fact the times when he would have his coffee breaks with her, he was positively bubbly or as close to bubbly as a shy antisocial wallflower could be. Sameer came up to him one afternoon and commented about the changes in him. Nikhil, uncharacteristically blustery, brushed it all off. Trying a different tactic, Sameer asked about Sanaa and got a shy smile and no comments. He jovially kidded Nikhil and left it at that, understanding his friend’s need for privacy about his feelings.

Sanaa seemed the same that she always had been with him, laughing and talking all the time. Only now, she felt a slight change in Nikhil, a slight consciousness that had earlier not been there, a kind of holding back. She tried to make him come back to normal, the more he retreated into his corner. Finally, she gave up and decided to just be herself with him. They continued their occasional coffee chats over the next few months. And the habit continued with Nikhil getting in deeper and deeper over his head. Yet he never so much as said a word to Sanaa.

Then came Nikhil’s sister’s wedding. It was in his hometown and he had to go for three weeks to get things ready. He had obviously invited Sanaa for the wedding itself but she couldn’t make it in the run up due to client meetings and reviews that had been set up then. She missed the coffee breaks then and the conversations. Nikhil was busy with the arrangements back home and so the phone calls were infrequent at best. Sanaa missed him through her client meetings, the luncheons and the dinners. When finally she realized what was happening, she had been dreaming for a while in the middle of a client presentation and had missed a question directed at her. Sheepishly covering up, she answered. She suddenly felt relieved at the realization of her feelings for Nikhil and the depth of it all. She couldn’t wait to tell him to his face and imagined his smile lighting up his face when she told him what she felt for him. When she finally landed up at his place, she missed him so much that she hugged him as soon as she saw him. A stunned Nikhil did not even respond and a few seconds away, Sanaa stepped back in obvious embarrassment. They both didn’t know where to look and were thankful for the intrusion of his mother and the round of introductions that started then.

The wedding went very smoothly. Nikhil made sure of that. The hugging episode had somehow made both of them a little distant and the fact that Nikhil could hardly get time to even talk to her properly during the lead up to the wedding, made sure that they didn't actually talk about it at all. Sanaa spent time with his mother and sister and family and found them to be a loving caring environment that she completely got immersed in. The fact that Nikhil said nothing about the hug or even tried to talk to her alone made her feel that she had actually got it completely wrong and had overstepped the extent of being a friend. She felt like she had lost something in the bargain, the emptiness threatening to overcome her taking part in the celebrations there. After a couple of days, she realized that this emotion was mainly linked to his reaction to her, as if she had been expecting something that wasn't there. While the disappointment was surely there, she also realized that if she continued on this path, she would lose Nikhil completely. He obviously had never thought of her as more than a friend and she decided that it’s what they would be.

When it was time to go, Sanaa decided that she wanted to make it all normal again. So she cornered Nikhil in a room in the house, alone on the pretext of saying good bye. When alone, she spoke first, like it had always been between them. She said, “You know you’re probably my best friend and I just want to make sure that there are no misunderstandings between us.” She went on to explain in her frank and forthright manner that the hug was nothing at all, it was just her happiness at seeing him. She went on and by the time she finished, she had made it very clear that they were friends and nothing more. Slightly panting for breath, she was puzzled to note Nikhil looking stricken, like he had been struck in the face.

Nikhil couldn't believe what he had heard, still reeling from what she had said. The hug had surprised him for sure and had made him think that Sanaa actually felt the same way that he did. He had become happier at the thought and was quietly comfortable in the thought of their shared joy. The wedding continued to take all of his time and though he wanted to talk to Sanaa about it all, he couldn't find the time. And besides, he didn't know what to say and didn't want to appear tongue tied in front of her. The sight of her with his family made him even happier and he actually caught himself imagining a life between them and then realizing that he was going way ahead of it all and shaking his head wryly with a smile. And when he thought she was going to say something about how things were going to be so much better between them, he was hearing just the reverse. He felt like he was being sucked up in a whirlpool that threatened to black him out. He could hear Sanaa calling his name and asking if he was OK. And that brought him back to reality like a bucket of icy cold water thrown at him. He woke up to reality, stuttering and stammering from his swim in the pool of delusion. His only answer was, “Of course, we are the best of friends and will always remain that way.” And she left and that was that.

Truthfully, he couldn't imagine Sanaa being just a friend any more, his treacherous mind kept slipping back to the happy memories that he had created out of thin air, sticking like glue to those moments, not letting them slip into the crevasse that he wanted to bury all those thoughts in. He decided to stay back a couple of more days at home, not sure about how he would face her, the very thought turning his stomach and leaving him gasping for breath. He chose to spend the time at home by himself, making his normal shell more like that of a hermit crab now.  His family knew him well and chose to leave him alone, except for his mother’s anxious questions that he could not face. Finally he told her the truth, and lost himself in the comfort of her embrace. It gave him strength and finally he realized that no matter how he felt about Sanaa, what was important was that he be there for her as a friend.

He went back to work the next day, somehow changed, no longer the same. Like a cracked vase that had been glued together. He went through the day like he was on automatic mode, making all the expected moves and noises. Until it was evening and suddenly he felt like a deer in the headlights. He looked up and saw her coming over. He quickly ducked to cover up the irrational joy that he felt on seeing her and composed himself as much as he could, feeling himself slipping even as he stood up and said as coolly as he could, “Coffee Time ?” And off they went, trudging off to their routine, as normally as they could, each a little different and the other, too caught up in their difference to mention it. However, being normal was as easy as walking bare feet on glass shards and not getting cut. Nikhil spent his time alone brooding over what was happening and how he would continue to go through the motions.

Sameer noticed Nikhil around the office, distinctly worse for the wear on more than one occasion and tried to get to Nikhil but the hermit crab would just go back into its shell. He caught Nikhil after a coffee break with Sanaa, looking wounded and vulnerable, ready to crack into a million pieces and realized that something was going wrong between them. He remembered his own experience and wished there was something he could do for Nikhil. But the moment was too fragile and he simply decided to pass it by, choosing to just walk by. Something in Nikhil’s look got to him and he couldn't shake the feeling that he had done wrong.

Then the inevitable happened, the only surprise being that it took so long to happen. Sanaa met Mark at her office, a new intern who was the complete opposite of Nikhil, outgoing and full of laughs. He kept coming across to her any time that he was at a loose end and he was incredibly easy to talk to. She felt strangely reluctant to share this with Nikhil, choosing not to mention it until they finally crossed paths at the coffee shop. Sanaa and Nikhil were sitting at the coffee shop, her talking and him listening, just the way it had always been. And suddenly, Mark entered the coffee shop and yelled across to Sanaa. Nikhil was surprised and showed it in his face. Sanaa was suddenly caught in between. She wished to heaven that she could have just disappeared from there. But luck wouldn't have it any other way. Mark walked up to her and pulled up a chair at the table, seemingly as normal with Sanaa as he was in office. Nikhil’s face first registered surprise and then slowly changed to normalcy as he understood that Mark and Sanaa knew each other. Sanaa, who normally monopolized all of their conversations, suddenly found herself tongue tied while Mark continued his description of an office meeting. Suddenly not wanting to intrude, Nikhil made an excuse and paid up for the coffees and left. Sanaa had half a mind to go after him and explain that it was nothing, just an office colleague. But knowing that if it had just been that, she would have told him already, she hesitated and stopped.

Nikhil turned at the door of the coffee shop and saw Sanaa looking at him. He couldn't bear to return her smile and just turned and left. And for the first time, a crack appeared in the surface of the ice pond that they had been skating on.

The Domino Effect - Part 3 - Reaching Out (Part 1 of 3)

Nikhil stood in front of the bank of elevators wishing the earth would open up and swallow him. His usually crisply ironed shirt was as limp as his morale and dripping wet. His trousers, the creased perfection that he always prided on, were a mess of wet muck where he had got splashed, the seeming Rorschach blot slowly dripping onto the floor. He shifted from one foot to another impatiently, quickly stopping as he realized that the squelch was loud enough to attract any attention that he had managed to escape with his appearance.

He looked studiously at the floor as the minutes ticked by, each second seemingly elongated like a over stretched rubber band, the tension twanging in the air around him. The floor was devoid of any interesting tidbits or splotches that he could microscopically examine in the meantime. And his eyes kept slipping to the pair of black heels standing next to him, gleaming in their mockery of his dishevelment. They, along with the neatly manicured toes seemed to be mocking the growing puddle that was building around him, the moat that now was the first line of defense of the glass bubble that threatened to go pop any second.

He sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye, making as if he was chasing that rivulet of water that streamed off his right shoe and tried to make a path to the lobby entrance. The black heels led to a pair of well shaped calves and … the elevator pinged to announce its arrival, disturbing his thesis on the rivulet’s drive towards emancipation. There was a rush of feet, splashing and sploshing his hard work back from the floor onto several feet clad in various shapes and colors of garments and footwear. Nikhil had scarcely moved an inch before the elevator looked like a can of sardines that would need a compression chamber to have even a remote chance of closing. His hand stood exactly at the same spot that he had managed to raise it to when the ping was heard – about a foot away from his body towards the elevator buttons to hold the door open for the black heels. He observed with dismay his vain attempt at chivalry, for the black heels had disappeared into the crowd of feet in the sardine can.

Two more attempts at boarding a lift later, he finally managed to get a leg in sideways and got to his desk, almost completely drip dried. The rest of the day was a blur as he struggled to catch up with the lost couple of hours of that wet and drizzly morning. As the evening wore on, the clouds built up, angry and ominous, almost threatening to blow his windows and storm his room. His anxiety grew at the thought of having to hail a cab in pouring rain and he doubled his efforts to finish his work. The clock moved on nevertheless and soon it was raining cats and dogs and mice to boot.  He finally stuffed everything into his bag and walked out the door at well past 8 PM, expecting to be there at least another hour before he finally managed to find a log that would drift homewards in the growing river that once was a road.

He held his bag up above his head in a make shift umbrella that soon dripped water on his head as he joined the line of people waiting for a taxi that would ferry them home. Some good Samaritan had piled up some bricks and so, he hopped from one to another to cross towards the platform where the queue stood, walking on water or so it seemed. There was a small strip of awning to be under which, most of the people there were jostling and shoving. After what seemed like at least 20 barrels of water, a couple of taxis landed up, causing a mad scramble, a joust with briefcases and bags alike resulting in some alliances being formed and about 7 or 8 of the asylum seekers left. The second mad scramble for the awning started and Nikhil found himself being pushed forward and under the awning.

With the rain stopping its attack on him, he stood uncomfortably between a hard elbow to his side and a hard breathing chest that rose and fell like a pair of bellows, feeling the slow trickle of water as it made its way down his back. Suddenly he heard the sound of heels clacking and looked up to see the pair of black heels walking purposefully towards the awning. They stopped just short, almost tapping impatiently, expecting someone to give up their place. After a long wait with no response, the right heel started tapping. Nikhil took one look around and found everyone studiously looking at their phones. The bellows was even starting at what appeared to be a dead phone. Feeling like he was in the spotlight, he carefully edged out into the rain and stood there with his arm out, gesturing her to take his spot.

It was a long wait to his taxi ride now.

The next morning, as like any other the weeks before, he made his way to the metro and onward to his office. His normal wait at the elevator banks that morning and his usually blanking out till he caught the third or fourth elevator, were rudely interrupted by a pair of tan heels that clickety clacked into his thoughts. He abandoned his study of the crack on the tile that looked like it was a bolt of lightning and raised his eyes to look at clear pupils that were quite not either blue or black framed by lips that curved into a hesitant smile as if to say that they didn’t know why they were there and what they were going to say. And then the words came out haltingly, thanking him for his gesture the previous day. Nikhil was tongue tied and mumbled a response that seemed more like an apology than an acceptance of gratitude. The embarrassing moment stretched as they both waited for the elevator. When finally it came, there was that routine dash to fill its insides and only the both of them were left. The wait stretched interminably until she broke it to ask him where he worked and what he did. The lift did take a long time to come after all. Her name was Sanaa, with a double A.

Each day after that, he would see her at the elevators at least once, and smiles would be exchanged, strained silences gave way to quick updates and some longer conversations. On most days, they would travel in separate elevator rides until one day she decided to take the one that he did and from then on, they shared the elevator ride too. More talk ensued and more information exchanged until one day, she suddenly showed up at his office. After the first rush of embarrassment at the looks of his colleagues and a stuttering hello, much like a flooded engine that slowly comes to life, he found that her client meeting for the afternoon had got cancelled and she wanted to go out for a coffee. Why with him? He couldn't for the life of him figure out why he was singled out for the experience.

The long walk out of the office, down the aisle past the barbed wire stares of people, the lift ride down where he attempted to write a new thesis on the scuff mark on his shoe and finally the arrival at the coffee shop. All these were burnt into his mind, along with the murmurs of encouragement that he seemed to be making that were hardly required for her to continue the monologue. Things took a turn for the worse when she laid a hand on his arm to explain something and let it stay there for a brief while. The coffee turned to mud and everything else around him disappeared, except the hand and her. It was one of those memorable experiences where all you remember are bits and pieces of the whole and for some reason; the thread that stitched them all together was simply not there. His only significant response was to her question on whether they should go back to work.

In spite of this debacle, she seemed to want to have more such masochistic experiences and asked him out for coffee every now and then, sometimes during and sometimes after work. With time, his tongue seemed to loosen itself and his brain kick-started along with the rest of his being and their conversations actually took a saner turn and veered towards work, interests and similar topics where he could actually craft a sensible response. He grew more and more comfortable with her while his walls and his insecurity with everyone else remained. It was curious to see the second side to him, one that she created in a fashion and brought alive.

Then came the evening when something changed. It was coffee as usual after work, something of a ritual between them now. However, that day, she seemed withdrawn. Since she was usually the catalyst in their conversation, long silences and the occasional question peppered the coffee that was left to grow cold. He could sense that she was bothered about something. But he hesitated, not wanting to intrude, letting the silence draw on in their island of quiet in the middle of the bustling coffee shop. After what seemed to be a very long cup of coffee, he signaled for the cheque. He paid up and they walked out, somehow strangely reluctant to part ways, the meeting incomplete without the normalcy of their conversation. She suddenly asked if he would like to walk and they just strolled down the road, past the usual taxi stand, the metro station and all familiars, the silence building on until it became too much to bear. She finally simply stopped and told him about her mother’s health having deteriorated, eyes brimming over and tears starting to trail down her cheeks. It was the first time either of them had talked about something deeply personal. His polite murmurs about her mother getting well soon didn't seem to be working as the tears continued, sobs becoming louder. Hesitant but without a clue on what else to do, he put an arm around her and held her loosely. She buried her face into his shirt front, the sobs growing louder as they stood in the middle of the sidewalk, people walking around them.  He dropped her home for the first time that evening, continuing to hold her all the way back.

Something changed between them that day, a new degree of closeness that neither could actually define. She remained the talkative one, drawing him out and making him laugh. He was the stronger one, helping her through things that seemed to bother her. Her mother’s health grew worse and she finally had to go home for a while. She was away for more than a week and it seemed like an endless expanse of time when he waited for her to come back. He was sitting at his desk between meetings and staring outside blankly, his thoughts fluttering here and there without landing on anything, just bouncing off walls. He reached out and almost called her then, an act of near desperation. But at the last moment, he held back.

He remained in a daze for the rest of the day, surprised by his own feelings and anxiety. When the final meeting came to an end, Sameer walked up to him and asked him if everything was OK. Sameer and he had worked together on several projects and he could actually talk to Sameer unlike most of the other people in the office. Surprised by the question, he didn’t respond and just murmured a polite reply. Sameer kept pushing and finally the whole incident came out in chewed up bits and pieces. Sameer heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Nikhil, you haven’t changed one bit in all the time I have known you. Why can’t you simply message or call her? You can just make up an excuse about wanting to know when she is back so that you can restart your coffee evenings. And maybe ask about her mother.” It all seemed so easy when Sameer put it that way and Nikhil agreed.

It was only later, when he was back at his desk and thinking about the call that the enormity of the task stared him in the face. Seven half attempts later, he dialed an eighth time. The phone on the other end rang and he immediately chickened out, ending the call. Unfortunately for him, in the era of mobile phones, there was such a thing as a missed call and lo behold, a minute later, she called back asking if he had called. He murmured something that sounded like what Sameer had suggested. And then as usual she took over the conversation and told him about her mom’s recovery and about missing coffee with him. His response was to simply agree. When finally the call ended, he found himself smiling. Things seemed to be OK again. Twice again she called before she came back and they talked, the conversations assuming a slightly different level from their coffee table talk.

Nikhil wasn’t aware of what was happening to him. If he was, he would have questioned his own sanity. But as things were about to prove to him, his life was going to be turned upside down in more ways than one.