Ever After

"This is your last stop sahib" said the soft spoken bus attendant to me as I woke up from my customary evening nap on my company bus. I don’t know exactly if he meant it as a metaphor or it was just those grey cells in my stupid mind made them feel so, but I had to get down for sure.

Sheepishly I picked up my bag and climbed down the bus. After 5 minutes of useless hesitation, I managed to cross the road after making sure that there was not even any approaching cycle which could hit me and lay me six feet under. What was so different about today than the rest of the days?

Let me guess. I woke up, showered, dressed, went to work, ate and now I am back.
Hey...seemed normal. But why do the people (in particularly youngsters in my team and around) seem happy? There was a grin on almost everybody's face, and there is an air of expectancy. And then it struck me. It was feb 14th.

Aahhhh. There we go. Valentine's Day. It seemed as if everyone else was looking forward to this day except me. There is a happy Valentines Day board outside a shop. I wanted to go and scream “You didn’t have a Happy Independence day board before dumb ass. What are you...some valentine pimp?”

But that’s not fair. This is a democratic country and except Shiv sainiks, RSS folks or Muslim Haji everyone had the right to freedom of expression. Damn! Why am I dragging politics now? It seemed as if this day was invented by the Archie’s & Hallmark or by Dee Beers & Nakshatra as their shops seemed to be filled with eager customers. Oh gosh! There we go. Either these love birds are sending SMS or calling and giggling or walking hand in hand. Why am I so jealous?

And that is when it happened. Powercut. Ahhh....I hate darkness. I took out my Sony W810i and tuned into some radio channel which was playing some mindless stuff. Whatever! As long as it keeps me away from madness. Have you ever walked around a busy road with headphones in our ears which plays loud music? Ahhh....you should try it. It seems as if the whole world is dancing to the tune of the song that you are hearing and you can relate to every gesture and every action on road in sync with the song.

The world remained the same everyday. I saw the same people today as I did on every other day. The Mithai shop uncle who barked at his customers, the grocery shop owner who seemed to reinvent multi processing, the vegetable vendor and house wife who haggled for every penny, the old beggar who knew I would never oblige and still never gave up and asked me for alms. It seemed as if we were all held captives in the prison of time. I reached my home and switched on the light. Bloody routine! It was pitch dark still. I switched on the light on my W810i which suddenly felt like some beacon on beach.

I threw my shoe, socks and bag and rested on the sofa. When you live alone in a house, no rules of neatness or decorum are applicable. Why am I alone? Oh...don’t bother. I closed my eyes with the headphones on and wondered what the hell was going to play next. And out of the blue, they decided to play THIS Lata Mangeshkar song. And I get reminded of her. Kalpana.

Lag Jaa gale,
ke phir yeh,
Haseen raat ho na ho

Shaayad, phir is Janam mein
Mulakaat ho na ho.

(Come and hug me,
This night may be there or not

We may or may not meet
in this birth.....)

Memories seemed to flood like an avalanche. This was the song for which we both had done tango in our small bed room and laughed at our stupidity. There was nothing in the room except our laughing voices, Lata Mangeshker's haunting voice....and our love.

How happy were we? How good those days were? We cared so much for each other. We were so madly in love. Those days of hand-in-hand roaming around the streets, those afternoons of stomach and heart filling lunch where food was just an excuse, those evenings in the garden, those nights together where everything else seemed like oblivion. It was a world where no one existed other than me and her.

What had happened to all that? All because of some stupid tussle. Coming to think of it, I can’t even remember why we fought in the first place. Perhaps all fights are like that. It was all in the heat of anger. It had been almost a week since we had talked and she had been living at her friends place.

Ego. Bloody ego. We both had been so adamant as if we would melt if we apologized I had been angry about Valentines Day just a few minutes before and now I was yearning to hear her voice. Strange how the human mind works. Suddenly the lights came back alive. The sudden surge of light almost blinded me. Like a baby just out of its mother's womb, I shrunk my eyes. I sprung from the sofa and shut out the lights.

Darkness. It seemed better in darkness. Only her memories, Lata Mangeshker's mellifluous voice and darkness. Like every other thing in this world, this song too came to an end. Something tasted salty. Ahhh....tears. Like raindrops on the other side of a window pane, she seemed so near....yet so far.

Throwing aside my ego and inhibitions, I decided to give her a call. I picked up my mobile and decided to talk, beg, and plead...whatever it takes to bring her back into my life. As I punched her number on my key pad, it happened.

My mobile came to life with her incoming call.