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After the futile attempt to wile away time staring at the road outside, now presenting no sign of any human activity, I closed my eyes. After all I could always look inside myself. What else could I do! My reading was martyred quarter hour ago for the sake of sleep of others when the driver turned off the lights. Today, looking inside, I felt blank. No thoughts knocked in. I sighed and leaned on to the bars of the window.
‘The whole bus waiting for one passenger, just one ‘The limiting factor’ I thought. I sat there bored and thinking of what I should think about…
A few minutes passed and then the rumble of an auto rickshaw set in and grew gradually till I could make out that it halted just outside the door .The driver of the bus gestured impatiently , but silently at the ‘limiting factor’ whose presence evident, but not yet visible to me. The driver groaned when the ‘limiting factor’ made a thudding noise entering the bus. It was a she, the limiting factor.
And the martyrdom of my reading was almost for a lost cause now, as most sleeps were broken, at least momentarily by the thud. The dark outline of the limiting factor gestured a silent apology to the ‘unfortunate woke-ups’. Then she turned to the driver and whispered something. The driver switched on the light. I thought with a grudge “There it goes from ‘Almost nothing’ to ‘nothing’… martyrdom for a lost cause…”.
The bus started moving. The limiting factor not any more a limiting factor to the bus, now the limiting factor to the sleeps of many, was scanning for a seat. I saw her face. I was horrorstruck. I didn’t want to be seen by her!!! I stooped so as to hide from her and sat looking down at the floor neither sure if she had noticed me nor if she recognized me in the first place.
The seat by me was empty, I noticed with a chill running down my spine. Hands cold, heart beats like gallops, what more should I say to convey what I felt. I prayed ‘Not here please. Not here of all seats’
Before even the prayer could have reached anyone, I saw the shadow of the limiting factor thorough the corner of my eye, placing her bag under the seat, preparing to sit by me. I sat looking out of the window trying to hide my face. Hands were shivering a bit and my stomach gave a sudden lurch.
A few moments passed and then breaking the silence that prevailed, the limiting factor, asked ‘Could you close that window please?’
I didn’t answer. I didn’t look at her. I just closed the window. The glass being black didn’t let in anything but yellow flashes of light sources and obscurity passing behind. Now it was pointless pretending to look sideway and hence useless to use that as a cover.
I looked slightly sideways and downwards, avoiding her face. The corner of the eye suggested some vague notion that she was looking at me. And then, god bless the driver, he turned off the lights. Now she wasn’t the limiting factor of their sleeps but mine. The limiting factor of my peace of mind. Always the limiting factor of something…even back then…
In a silence of tension I sat. The silence was broken down by her sweet voice, not the tension. “Is this Suresh?”
I looked at her with a foolish smile. And now, in my forties, I felt like a boy. The same who met her some quarter century back. ‘Growing out of this funny feeling was impossible, even after all these years’, I thought. I felt a bit ashamed, a bit humiliated. Only bits compared to the old feeling. Well now I found it really funny too. Something I could laugh at, sharing with my wife.
“That’s a surprise; after all these years!!! ” the exclamation in her voice was genuine. This was first time she talked to me!!! I was more used to her silence. Her DNPs as I call it…
She started asking where I was going, of my life in general, making small talk. I couldn’t but feel a thrust inside me at the sight of the vermillion on her hairline. Another funny feeling. Not that I felt anything for her. I am someone who believes i got the best wife in the world. Still it kind of itches, you know, slightly, and funnily. I had an urge to grin at the thought, I killed it even before it took birth.
I answered one question after another. Well, I never knew she was talkative. Always thought she was of the silent sort. I couldn’t ask much. She was like an interviewer.
She asked “Your wife?”
I smiled and said “I have the best”.
“Why?!!” She smiled and asked, exclaiming a bit.
I laughed and said “Made for me…”
She just smiled. Then asked more, more and more…
Time flew on and at some point I looked at my radium dial wristwatch. It was past 1 AM. She noticed it and said ‘It’s time to sleep I guess’
I nodded, though not so sure I could easily…
She took a blanket out of her bag and as she was unfolding it, she asked passively “You still write, na?”
My stomach gave another lurch. I said nothing.
She continued “Your letters. They were beautiful.”
I nodded smiling, avoiding her eye. Then she said “You didn’t answer me…”
I said “A bit. Now and then…”
“Published anything?”
“No…Just for myself…you know…personal satisfaction”
She sat back, covered herself with the blanket and wished me night…then she said after a pause “keep writing… Shouldn’t waste the talents you have. You know, many cant.”
I sat back and closed my eyes. I couldn’t help grinning. I sat ruminating over those days far behind…Those days…
What’s your concept of a typical SENIOR at college? That was me.
A Scornful Greek god wouldn’t have been as scornful as me to my juniors. Ruthless and feared. Yet accepted and respected. All of it...in the right proportions for a typical senior I guess.
M.A economics wasn’t hard for me. Marks, never below average and work, never above average. The college life was life itself. Ragging was mostly fun, never too hard…Just funny and fun. Some arrogant lots got it lots though.
My final year at college. That’s when she came to my college and to my life. That’s how I used to think then. Well, now, I correct it. She never came to my life.
I still remember staring at her, the very first time I met her…a beautiful girl with hostile eyes. I was dealing with some junior boys, trouble-makers,well, to their luck I got distracted .I learned from them that she was of BA literature (English) class. Name was Vrinda.
Then I started hanging out near the Literature Block with my friends. During breaks when she came out, I made it my duty to be present there to stare at her, with all my heart wishing she would answer my stares somehow. It was as if she never noticed my stares. Her hostile eyes were immune to them. The negligence in them indeed acknowledged the deliberateness of the act and the deliberateness was a relief as it acknowledged that she was aware of my stares and deliberately ignoring them.
Within a couple of weeks, it was well known to everyone that I was after her. Even she knew it, though she still was deliberately neglecting it. Shameful to me it became, when even after a couple of months, it didn’t progress from stares unanswered. A so called ’feared, ruthless and scornful’ senior-most boy totally ignored by a junior-most girl. I felt shameful indeed. I didn’t have to do it this way. There were faster ways, ways that didn’t guarantee effectiveness though. But I decided to be patient.Afterall it was a matter of love.
Anyway I had no idea what to do about this. So I opened up to my closest friend Das. The man of solutions to any emotional issue, except his own. Well, ironically as life always is, his solutions always worked for others, never himself. Leave that…Anyway Das heard me out. He gave it a thought
“Why not write her a letter. That’s the best solution I guess. And you know, beautiful letters always gets them into the net. Well, not the illiterate ones” he said laughing to his own joke and then added “Passing it to her is easy. We can leave that to Raji. She is at the Ladies’s”( Raji was his lover)
The idea seemed simple and perfect. I left for my room immediately, to pen down my love to pin down my love. It took me more than a dozen days, few duodecad papers every time and a lot of frustration to realize why I didn’t take literature in the first place. I postponed ‘penning down my love’ for some time later knowing that ‘some time later’ was analogous to putting away indefinitely.
The shame was eating me each day. The boldness of my stare steadily decreased. I felt like everyone around were silently mocking me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Telling her was like a blocked bottleneck, as if the narrow neck wasn’t enough…
How could I let her know? How? How? That’s the only thing for which my brain worked and my brain worked overtime for a solution. All the time except staring at her. Funniest thing is, she knew it and yet I had to do this!
With Arts festival that year, came the perfect solution. The idea was simple: assign the work to someone who aced it and reap the results. I called the boy who got prize for English Short story writing and Essay writing, Baalu. This writer was my resource, another resource of a resourceful economist. I told him what I wanted. ‘Beautifully written letters’. I gave him the points I wanted to see in it. I didn’t have to threaten him to do it; that was the way I was looked at by my juniors all except one who never looked at me at all.
The draft of the first letter came. I read it. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. Perfect. The draft got promoted to original. I didn’t thank him. He wasn’t to be pampered unnecessarily. That would make him demanding. The letter was passed through Raji.
Next day, with boosted up self confidence I went to my usual place with my friends, a little earlier than break, waiting for her. I was eager to see her response. And when the break came she came out. I stared; she just went on with her Deliberate Negligence Programme(DNP). Neither a reply nor an acknowledgement. I was offended, I was frustrated and I was ashamed.
I called the Baalu boy back and asked him to write another letter, telling what I felt when she deliberately ignored the letter from me. He smiled hearing the ‘from me’.
I knew why. I said offended ‘I make you write them. I give you what to write. It’s from me. Some directors use camera-men instead of doing the camera work themselves. It’s the same here’
Anyway the boy did it well this time too. The letter was well written. I got it delivered to her through Raji again.
Every next day was similar…it became a vicious cycle. More shame, more frustration, more letters, more deliberate negligence, more shame, more frustration, more letters, more deliberate negligence. It went on, so on and so forth…
And at some point it reached my threshold, the breaking point. I decided to break the ‘next day’ cycles that prevailed. I was getting impatient and really really offended at her arrogance.
I thought ’Who does she think she is? Some heavenly princess? Who did she think she was playing with? What was she thinking? That I didn’t know of other better ways of dealing to her? Spitting on my humility, is it?
The next day I went with sleeves rolled up than usual. The feared scornful Greek god-like attitude evidently took over, which I neither used at her nor to get to her, till now. Well, seeing her I felt they would all melt off. I feared I would smile foolishly involuntarily.
I went to her walking in a violent manner and repeated my thoughts in an aggressive tone “Who do you think you are? Some heavenly princes? Who do you think I am? Who do you think you are playing with? Do you think I don’t know better ways to deal with you? …”
Well I couldn’t complete the rest of it as the boys around thought I was violent and pulled me back. Well, I was in total control and there wasn’t any need for all that. But how could they know. Well, people love to make a scene out of nothing. Then a big sensational story out of it. The same happened here too
All, actually from nothing…
The very same day I wanted to apologize to her for getting angry. But no one would let me go anywhere. I was treated like a nut that could at any moment go blasting. Sidekicks became like self-appointed bystanders. Everyone wanted to console me. Das had gone home and hence I was stuck up with all of them. Bystanders than friends.
The very next day her father came to college and complained. The day that followed, I was suspended from college for a few days and my father was informed. Suspension never mattered. But informing my father was a little too much, being the man he was.
Well, my father was a strict man. A man of principles above everything. I believe I don’t have to explain how he would have reacted to his own son misbehaving to a girl.
“ Better not born than born to be son like this” he declared. Then he warned with a lot of swearing that if I ever disturbed that girl or any other girl he would banish me from family. No talking back was allowed. Well, this much was bearable than what he did the very next day. He went to Vrinda’s house to see her and her father, to apologize for his son. I felt ashamed, humiliated and downtrodden.Till then I held some hope of getting her back.Now, I couldn’t even think of facing her ever again.
After I returned I kept my word. I didn’t ever disturb her…
Even the thought of her was depressing and humiliating. I wasn’t ‘the scornful senior’ anymore. I retreated into my shell and moved on with my life. Passed my MA Economics with first class marks. Got my Doctorate and then started working. Got married to my wife… I mean, I made her my wife by marrying her.
I couldn’t help grinning at her words “Your letters. They were beautiful.”
And with that grin on my face I slept by her. Literally
****
The mobile alarm rang at 6 in the morning. I woke up and found she was already up. She looked tired and sleepy though. She was folding her blanket and packing it into her bag. I wished her morning.
Her mobile rang. She answered it “Am almost there. In a couple of minutes we’ll be at the stop….okay”
She hung up, turned to me and asked “By the way forgot to ask you where you are going?”
“Marriage of a friend’s daughter”
“You told that yesterday. I mean now. Direct from the stop. To know if it’s someplace we can drop you on our way. Or you have someone waiting to pick you up?”
“Well, I have a room booked at Hotel Tri-Star. None to pick up.”
“Aha. That’s on our way… we will drop you.”
The bus finally reached the station. We got down. She looked around and then noticing her car, slowly walked towards it. I followed her. She opened the back door and put her baggage to the other side. She held the door open for me. I got in.
Then she got into the front seat. Her husband turned back and extended his hands to me. The face shook me more. I saw the face of the man who vermilliononized her forehead, with a sickening jolt in my stomach. A funny feeling again. Funniest of all…
“This is my husband. “And she added “you might know him …”
He turned back to drive, with a smile.
Yes I did…
She continued “Baalu was my classmate. Well, he is a freelancing journalist and has some books to his name. Baalu has friends who are literary agents. If you want to get published, he can help you.”
‘What was going on? ‘ I thought, with a unique feeling. I didn’t know what to feel. What’s that feeling called?
I thought on and on ‘Was it her sarcasm? Were they making fun of me? I couldn’t tell from her voice. Was he so noble that he never told his wife he wrote the letters and not me? Was it that they were in love from back then and he had told her then itself, that my letters were his? Or had she known all the way here right from college that he wrote them? Was he the limiting factor that kept me from getting her? Or they fell in love much later, after I left and then he told later?? Did he tell her? Did she really know?’
I couldn’t say. I couldn’t ask either…So many questions. None could be answered without telling her the answer which if she really didn’t know would be embarrassing for me. Or getting it out of her that she knew it all, right from the beginning, straight to face, would be equally embarrassing(and funny).
All I could do was wonder… and remain puzzled because puzzled was better than embarrassed.
They dropped me before Hotel Tri-Star and as they bid me farewell, she turned to me, taking a card from the dash. A visitor’s card of her husband’s and said “Keep writing. Bye then. See you”
I waved them a good-bye and stood there still puzzled.
She knew it? Or she didn’t? I wondered
What else could I do but wonder!!!
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Again :P I dont know if anyone would read this far :P its long I guess :P
Cheetha vilikaan mobilil message ,gmailil offline, ivide thanne comments :) u know the routine na :D
love
hari
