The First Rush

He braked, even though she hadn't hailed the rick. So she walked up, less than desultory, and asked, "Kurla?"

The rain doesn't let up here. It's a benediction, a blind, a dogged, overconfident presence, a mug of black coffee, a pinch of opium. The lights, they never fully die either. The daylight fades slowly, languorously. The streetlights never sleep. It's a seamless handing over of wakefulness, a faceless but purposeful series of movements - like a heart beating quietly, rhythmically. The light follows its own rhythm, as does the rain, the drops beating a little tattoo on awnings, windowsills and umbrellas.

"Yes", he replied. She got in, remembered that she had missed a crucial question, realised that it might be too late already, but decided to ask it anyway.

"Meter se chaloge?"

The city recorded its highest June rainfall in a decade last Monday. Nothing moved. Anything that did quoted astronomical prices in exchange. Some might even say it was the city's way to equilibrium. Life otherwise comes packaged in a split bun here, with chutney and fried, salted green chillies if you feel like it, all for ten bucks. Life calls out to you from under brightly-painted facades and from makeshift stalls, where it sizzles on a hot tawa in a cloud of smoke. The smoke is aromatic and smells of cumin and mustard and bay leaves and curry leaves and garlic. The smoke mingles with the rain, and they beat a tattoo together on your umbrella. Plop, plop, plop-plop-plop, plop.

"Bilkul". And then she looked up in surprise. Two syllables, and no hauteur, no hurt pride, no resignation, no businesslike briskness. Just an answer to a question. A simple, confident answer to a regular, hurried, part-suspicious question.

It is mostly the shoes which bear the brunt of the weather. The colour is the first to fade, relenting slowly, unwillingly, bravely to the assault by muddy water. Shoes that have served long and well, and deserve the dignity of the shelf - shoes whose long history of faithfulness keeps them from acquiring said dignity. Nobody ever stops to think this, but the shoes and the rain are intimately related. The shoes make the rain manageable, even fun. Splash. Plop-plop. Splash.

It is nearly ten. Kurla is still lit up like a Christmas tree. Smoky smells of frying green chillies and splitting mustard hang from doorways and in shop windows. Shiny garments embellished with sequins are still hung up, like tinsel on the Christmas tree. Bikes, cars, bicycles, pushcarts. A fluorescence that has settled comfortably into nooks and crannies. A day being wrapped up, like this morning's newspaper. Another night slipping effortlessly into the split bun. Chutney, anyone?

Curiosity tumbles out even as the currency is being counted for the 28-buck ride. This is a terrible hassle, this counting currency in fickle light. Everything should be pigeonholed into Smartcards and coupons - like train rides are. Train rides on the Central Line, or the Western, near the doors - are they points of entry? Exit? - with the breeze and the rain blowing past madly. Breeze chasing rain, rain chasing breeze - hard to tell which. They chase each other into her hair, over her eyelids, into the crook of her elbow and the nape of her neck. Buildings blur themselves obediently. Foliage follows. And the train rushes over the tracks. Rhythmically, purposefully. Clackety-clack. A four-stage crescendo, followed by a subdued double thud. Tek-tek-tek-tack. Four-minute nirvana in faded shoes that have learned the curves of the soles of her feet, with the rain and the breeze and the blur and the dependable, consistent rhythm of 400 tonnes of steel on weather-beaten iron.

So she glared Curiosity back into its place, asking him at the same time as she handed him a 50-rupee note, "Do you live here? Why did you agree to bring me here at this time of day - don't you have to return the rick to the owner of the fleet?"

The rain and the breeze play games elsewhere too. Marine Lines, for instance, where, during high tide, the waves build themselves a trampoline. She saw that today. For all its madness, the rain is the meeker cousin of the sea. Brash and brazen, the sea built itself up and came boldly forward with a swagger- stay if you dare, or run! - and crashed on the breakers, drenching her from head to toe. Taken - every which way -  by surprise, she took a while to breathe again, and when she did, she tasted salt on her lips. Raw, unbroken salt. Between the rain and the sea, she melted, dissolved and came together again. Washed, scrubbed clean, with salt on her lips and her skin. Touched by the elements in the bold, intimate, no-permission-needed-none-asked manner of a lover.

"Ladies first", he said. "I live in BKC", and he handed her twenty bucks in change. "I was done for the day and going home, but then I saw you waiting for the bus. You were alone, and it is almost ten. Here, you forgot two rupees."

Afterthought

But oh, how it feels so real
Lying here, with no one near, only you
And you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly,
Hold me closer, tiny dancer...

'I'll tell you something that makes a lot of sense', she sighed meditatively. 'It seems like the end of the world, but it isn't.'

I waited for more.

She looked at me, a little surprised that I hadn't recognised the wisdom in her words yet.

'So...?' I prompted.

'So it isn't the end of the world, and will not feel that way', she said, a little impatiently.

'That's the problem. It feels that way right now.'

'So don't let it'. She'd gone right back to complacent wisdom.

Jesus freaks out in the streets
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back, she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad.

I glanced at her, stirring sugar into into her coffee. We had lost touch after I left the firm; had discovered, thanks to Facebook, that we were both in town for Christmas, and had made a spur-of-the-moment plan to meet up. I wondered if she had ever had the slightest idea. It didn't matter anymore whether she had, but it was definitely ironic that she should be telling me not to let it feel like the end of the world now.

'I don't think it will, much longer'. I focused on a speck on the table.

'It's difficult', she acknowledged, frowning thoughtfully. 'I took it hard too, when it happened to me a couple of years ago. You remember that time when I used to be really irritable at work, and once took that long, three-week break for no apparent reason? May, I think. Or June. But it's okay. You get over it. All it takes is some time.'

'There was none here, Jen', I pointed out. I didn't want to mention that I had very vague recollections of the time she was referring to. It was around then that I had resigned, and I had had issues of my own to deal with. But telling her that wouldn't have been very polite.

'That shouldn't affect your decision'. She straightened. 'You need to think clearly'.

More and more ironic, I thought.

Hold me closer, tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You've had a busy day today

'Let me know how it works out', she said, as we were paying the bill. 'And do learn to show up on time. We were going to meet at five, not five-fifteen.' She smiled. 'I'm glad you admit to the feeling, at least, Ray. I didn't think I'd live to see the day that you felt this way about someone!'

It seemed about time.

'Jen', I looked her straight in the eye. 'This is not the first time I've fallen for someone. I felt this way about you back then, you know. When we worked together. I just never told you. And...' I faltered, suddenly uncertain. It didn't appear as harmless an idea as it had four seconds ago, this choosing to tell her about feelings that I had put away for good. She was staring at me, still with shock. 'And...' I went on, putting all my courage into my words, 'it did seem like there was someone you were constantly thinking about, so it didn't feel like the right thing to do. It's all in the past, of course. Anyway...so I think I'll leave now. See you later?'

'Ray'.

'Yes?" I turned. She hadn't moved an inch.

'Think clearer this time." Her voice was hard and her eyes were unusually bright.

I sat in my car, listless and a little troubled. Maybe I should get more coffee to go, I thought, absently fingering the receipt from our coffee. Jen never collected receipts. It was a habit everyone at work used to kid her about, I remembered.

The order for a latte and a double espresso had been placed at 4:53 pm.

Autumn - Part III

Hey...

It's a whole five days since we last met...I miss you. I wish you hadn't gone. I know, I know, it's your best friend's wedding...but hey, I count for something too, don't I?

:)

Don't be mad now...you know I'm kidding.

About you not caring for me, that is. I do miss you.

I was walking by PTI this afternoon. Can you believe it's been eight months now?? Eight whole months of knowing you...of loving you...it's the same thing...I miss you, Neen.

Keventers got back their vanilla shake, by the way. I went there this afternoon with Deep. I had the mango, though...we'll save the vanilla for when you get back. :)

Come back soon, Neen. I want my security blanket back.

Yes, I know I have to grow up. You can teach me how. We've got the rest of our lives to do all the teaching and learning. :)

Just come back soon, okay?

Love,

Dhrubo

P.S. It's not like I don't know that you won't really be checking your mail there...but I've got to write when I've got to write, right? Love you.

Autumn - Part II

The rain began to fall faster, more urgently. She could have stepped under the awning of the coffee shop, but something made her want to wait for Dhrubo here, right outside in the rain. That way, she could get a glimpse of him sooner.

She paused for a second at the thought, contemplating reprimanding herself for being so silly. She wasn't sixteen...and this certainly wasn't the rational behaviour of a twenty-six year-old. Then she let the reprimand go. Dhrubo had taught her to ease up, to be more accepting of life as it came instead of attempting to pigeon-hole everything into logic, schedules and plans. She wondered, not for the first time, what had brought them together...what made them stay this way.

"Is this how you always begin your day?" she had asked in disbelief tinged with annoyance the third time they had met - the third morning also, in a row, that Dhrubo had come sprinting into the elevator, partially-knotted tie in one hand and backpack flung over his shoulder. His rushed entry would scatter the crowd already present inside. With his feckless air and the nonchalant, disarming ease with which he smiled at a bunch of strangers he had just inconvenienced, Dhrubo could make the concept of frowning upon delays look near-ridiculous...and every morning, it seemed to Neena, he did just that.

"I try", he had grinned at her. It was a frank, open smile, the sort that told her right away that she would be wasting her time harbouring ill-will against the face that wore it. "I really do...but no matter what I do, I am always running late." He frowned towards the end of the sentence, then smiled again. "I'll try not to hold back the elevator tomorrow...or at least not when you're taking it."

She hadn't been able to hold back the smile then.

Her smile...thought Dhrubo, rounding a bend in the road. It was the sort that stayed with you hours after you'd seen it, the sort that could be sensed even over the phone. He loved her smile. He'd told her that often enough.

Standing there in the rain, mulling over all that she wanted to tell Dhrubo today, she wondered if she had ever told him that she had lost her heart to him with that first smile and conversation. Excuse of a conversation, she corrected herself. Some first meeting that was. Had she told him? She didn't remember doing so.

I hope to goodness she isn't getting drenched, Dhrubo muttered to himself as threaded his way through a crowded pavement. And then he grinned to himself at the realisation of how the essence of each had rubbed off on the other...he'd started being careful, for goodness' sake. Actually, he added as an afterthought, he'd started being careful for her sake. And he was willing to bet that she would actually be standing out there in the rain - just like he would.

He was afraid of sense and order before she came along. There was always greater security in the haphazard and the haywire. She had found that both astonishing and amusing - and had told him so in as many words. He'd laughed off her questions then...and then found himself pondering them later, in his solitude. That was what had clinched it for him. His solitude was sacrosanct - reserved only for him. When thoughts about her inched themselves effortlessly into his long walks and early morning coffee, he'd stopped to take stock. And he had known. Known with absolute certainty.

And here they were today. There she was, the only person standing in the rain. He waved.

Neena waved back, her throat suddenly aching with unshed tears.

Autumn - Part I

Dhrubo was late again. That didn't surprise Neena. He was always late. In the beginning, she had thought this was an endearing habit. She liked the way he would come running up, stringing words together into an excuse - or an apology; she never really knew which - smiling at her even before their eyes met, taking her hand even as she tried - half-heartedly - to rebuke him. Their meetings always began this way. It was a habit with her, just like Dhrubo's tardiness was a habit with him.

Dhrubo checked his watch. In all the seventeen months that he had known Neena, he had never made it on time. It amazed him that they were still together. They were so different as people that it was surprising that they had even got along in the first place. Or maybe that's why they got along, he mused. Either way, he couldn't imagine his life without her. He couldn't recall a time when she hadn't been there, his island of calm in an otherwise crazy life. Neena, he thought to himself, and smiled. Neena, his security blanket.

Dhrubo, Neena thought to herself. Dhrubo, her hurricane lamp. Fickle, warm, bright. Hers.

They used these terms of endearment in their letters and emails to each other. Almost silly, it would have all seemed to an outsider, but they didn't care for outsiders. They had each other, and that was all that mattered.

In the beginning...but then, things are so different in the beginning. For better or for worse, they change, she thought, as she searched her bag for mint. She liked mint. It was something she had picked up from Dhrubo. Sometimes, she wasn't sure whether she liked mint because she liked it, or because Dhrubo was fond of it. After all this time, it didn't matter.

It began to rain. She shielded her eyes against the drops and squinted into the distance, looking for Dhrubo.