Shadows and Dust -Part II

From December 1, 2010

If you have not gone through the Part-1 , the read it first : http://thedarknesswithinlight.blogspot.com/2010/03/shadows-and-dust-part-i.html

It was about 11:30 pm when my flight had landed at New Delhi Terminal -3. In fact I had chosen such a late flight as it was quite within my stretched financial limits. It had been nearly eight long years; I had spent any fest with the family so this time I decided to visit them before it’s too late. Rephrasing an old adage “Give others time to miss you but not so much that they start enjoying living without you”. I was pretty excited about my trip as and I had chalked out several plans to spend time with family and meet college friends without any floating transcendental thoughts in my mind.

At the dark hours of the night, with all around people in the airport rushing from one end to the other, some sipping coffee to keep them warm in the chilling winters of Delhi and other reading the newspaper/magazines to held their heads up till their flight times and few like me just waiting for the night to get over and leave the airport for another destination. Listening to the old song ‘Chupke se of Sathaiyaa movie’ , I was just going over the pages of my new read ‘Jhumpa Lahri’s - Unaccustomed earth’ . I was feeling thirsty so went to drink water. Found one government installed drinking water tap, so thought of giving it a try. But as always being a fickle minded personality, I looked for the hooks for how to use that tap. Struggled for few minutes and finally quit this plan of drinking from that tap. In my heart I was scolding government for installing such complicated machines and that too without any instruction set on how to use it. I was about to move back to my seat with an heavy heart , that a girl child of merely 7-8 years came and start using that tap . Flabbergasted to see this, I looked back how she was using this equipment. I laughed at myself that what a big generation gap it was between me and them. I being working in so called the most ebullient and innovative industry, was unable to find it usage and this kiddo who merely know how to speak her name use that machine on the fly. Once she was done, I followed her foot steps to fulfill my thirst. I drank more than what I wanted only to make sure my fake varchasav (Varchasav : an socio-politics term means urge to attain complete power ) . I turned back to say thanks to that kiddo for saving my fifty bucks on water. She replied me back with an unexplainable smile and welcomed my thanks. I had a candy in my pocket so I offered her that but she being aware of the swindled humanism of people, refused to take it. I understood the pure intentions behind that so didn’t force her and ate it in front of her ;-) .

She went back to her parents and I came to my seat. Again I was back to the story of a Bengali ‘Partho da’ in love of an English lady in the book I was reading . Out of the blues of the babbling silence, of the people’s chitchat and running footsteps, someone patted my back. I turned back and found that sweet kiddo looking at me with stunning looks. I was in a confusion that had I done something wrong. I, with fumbling heart, asked her “what happened beta ?”. She raised her temples and asked me “Are you are a computer engineer or an I.T engineer?”. As soon as those words as electrical pulses hit my neurons, It didn’t take even seconds to realize that Sabnam was somewhere around. I smiled and started groping for words but was just speechless with a smile on my face. Without wasting any time, I asked her “where is She?”. Aah , Someone knocked my head with a plastic bottle and I turned back and saw her . With one hand rubbing I was my forehead and with other hand , pinching my body to check that it was not a dream. For next few seconds, it was just silence which surrounded both of us and then she said “How are you ? How long ? Do you remember we met ... ??” . I replied “Yes, too long and I do remember that day in coffee house”. I was not able to accept the reality at that time, I was thinking it’s a dream or a dream within dream something even more complicated than Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’. I just looked at her face and kept on looking at her. Before I utter something, she put another bunch of questions “Why so silent? What are you upto now a days? How is my daughter looking ? Doesn’t she look the same as I had described?” .I replied all her queries in very few words “Do you still remember the conversation we had on that day?”. She replied “Word by word”. I always thought that for her , it’s would had been a normal conversation that we had on that day but with her answer I was again back to the space , floating somewhere back in time and then again I regained myself . Shook my head and asked her “would you like a cup of coffee; I need it to come back from the blackout zone”. She said “which blackout zone?? What are you talking? Are you fine?” I just smiled back and moved toward the Costa coffee counter and got two cups of cappuccino and a nutrition bar for the kid. I said “She is the same as you described”. She reverted with another sequence of questions “Ooh , really then why didn’t you recognized her in the first instance ? Where are you settled at? What are you doing now-a-days? ..” and many more . It’s been very less time in my life, when I really felt ‘loss of words’. One such incidence was during my toefl exam when I had to speak impromptus on some topic and I just blacked out . And next was in front of questions. With such hustling – bustling airport, I can sense the silence in the air but with the caffeine going inside , Its kicking me back to the world. Her girl was ditto like her. I replied few of her queries and after each reply she kept on adding a payload “you are an I.T engineer”. And all could revert was a smile.

I then asked her ‘how is her family and job , still in Calcutta and where she is leaving for now along with her daughter’ . She told that her husband has got a job in Saudi Arabia and She had returned from Saudi few weeks ago to spend some time with family at Lucknow and was taking tomorrow’s morning flight for Calcutta to visit her parent-in-laws . Then I asked her about life outside India. It was like I touched some dangling pointer and their occurred a segmentation fault. I could feel the presence of resentment in her eyes. I said “sorry I just asked it , change the topic if you don’t like telling it”. She said “Nothing like that , it’s just boring to be there . Women don’t have freedom to do things as freely as here, religion has hard emotion and fundamentalism attached and most important I haven’t made any friend to talk with till now and have no job” . I understood what she really was going through as I always feel that “We are unique but not so unique”, means whatever we do, however we live but in the end of the day, we want someone to talk with, someone who could listen our overflowing stack of thoughts and give us some directions to marshal them along with discussing their thought process. So knowing her problem, I again smiled back and this time with a little giggle. She felt offended and yelled at me “You are also others, taking it for granted”. The way she yelled , I eschewed my reasons to laugh because It was like if I would have smiled again , she might slap me down and I never wanted to experience that . I replied her “I am not laughing at your situation, was just trying visualize it.” She replied “oo yaa, so what did you visualize my I.T Engineer”. I again giggled looking at her eyes.

We exchanged what I believed were secret smiles and in those moments I felt that she understood me better than anyone else in this world. Her daughter recited several rhymes which made me laugh as her innocence and her acts which made me nostalgic about me freaking past. She reminded me being a child who blows up a bubble of soap. At first the bubble is very small, but it is already spherical. Then the child blows the bubble up very softly, until he/she is afraid that it will burst. And being a child like her, she rejoiced in those little bursts also. And I and Sabnam were just smiling at each other. But aah whats this ??? I could hear the sudden siren filling up the silence in the air. The sound was increasing like hell and I was feeling like soon it’s going to penetrate through my ear drums. I put my hands on her kid’s ears and closed my eyes praying to God. Suddenly someone juddered me. I opened my eyes and it was Rounak shouting at me to stop my alarm clock. I looked here and there , touched the wall and the cold floor to see if this is a dream or that was a dream. Till today I don’t know which was a dream, one in which I was smiling and enjoying or one which just petrified me to a stone man .
“In every girl's life there is a boy she never forgets. In every boy's life there's a girl he can never get.”

From November 19, 2010