Nameless Love

It was a November night and soft winter cold was spreading across Delhi like a rumour. Dinner had been served and they were sitting in the living room with their naked feet on the soft Afghani carpet. His younger brother’s wife brought dessert for them and their kids had cuddled next to him.

He was a successful man – rich, good-looking and adequately famous in the Page 3 circles. He owned three art cafes, one in Delhi, one in Dehradun and one in Jaipur. All three greeted their visitors with a painting of two figures seemingly in love riding on a red chariot.

It was his 39th birthday and the kids of his younger brother, who was 34, asked him the reason of why he was still single. The kids were 8 and 11 years old, so he smiled in response. A reaction quite in contrast to one he would have given had somebody else asked the same question.

 “Uncle, come on now, tell us!” the elder one demanded, as she was the one on whom he showered the most affection.

He made eye contact with his brother and he shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know why they are asking this.”

“Come on Uncle, tell us!” the younger one revolted, climbing on his shoulder.

He gave a look to his younger brother’s wife that made her call the children away from him, “Stop pestering your uncle!”

“Are we bothering you?” his niece asked him, close to tears.

“No,” he said in a solemn manner, placing his large hand on her head.

“Then tell us!” she chuckled, wiping her eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

The room fell silent. His brother’s wife curled her toes, collecting the soft fur of the carpet between them. Around the carpet there were four bergères on which they were sitting. He was staring at a replica of Vincent’s Chair by Vincent van Gogh, hung on a wall in front of him.

He spoke, giving large pauses after every word, “I am waiting for an email.”

“An email?” the 11-year-old muttered.

“Yes,” he breathed.

“From whom?” she asked.

“A girl, a lady.”

“What’s her name?”

“She does not have a name.”

The other people present in the room were listening intently to the conversation. They seemed like the audience in a play during a crucial dialogue.

He held the 8-year-old by the waist and brought him down from his shoulder on to his lap. He repeated himself, giving pauses between words, “she does not have a name.”

“But how could that be? Everybody in this world has a name. Even my cat has a name. His name is Tonto.” His 8 year old nephew reasoned.

“Picture yourself in a car, passing a frangipani tree,” he addressed everyone, looking blankly in front of him, visualizing what he spoke. “One of its branches lets go of a flower and that flower is falling from the branch to the feet of the tree.” He looked at the kids to make sure they were following him. “You cross the tree when the flower is midway but you do not see it hit the ground.” He held the kids’ hands and asked, “Now tell me, what would you remember about that flower?”

“That it’s still falling?” his niece answered. Half because she thought this is what he wanted to hear.

“And you are very right, darling.” He said, lighting a smile on her face. “Similarly, when I met her, I did not know her name. I did not wait long enough to let the transition complete. So for me, she will be my nameless love.”

His brother and his brother’s wife exchanged glances. “Care for a cigarette?” his brother asked him.

“Not in front of the children.” He declined the offer and then, with a rare smile on his face, he said, “However, I could have another serving of that dessert.”

As his brother got up to fulfill his wish, his niece asked another question, “So, where did you lose her?”

Before he could answer, his brother’s wife spoke, “Don’t you think you should be asking uncle where he found her?” She looked at him and raised her brows in anticipation of a response.

His brother came back with a plate-full of dessert. He took a spoonful in his mouth, took a deep breath and then spoke.

“It is with most of us that a moment comes in life, a rare moment, when we change from the old to the new, when an age ends and a new one begins. When the withered flower is decapitated by a ruthless wind, one shriveled petal at a time and when the sympathetic sunshine helps a baby bud hatch.

It was the night of August 13; I was pacing through the ever crowded New Delhi railway station, protected from the fine rain that drizzled on the reticent railway tracks reflecting the platform lights. I noticed the lights on the platform, on which my train was momentarily halting, being hugged by numerous bugs. In times of need even the faintest source of warmth appears to be the dearest. And in that moment, the moment in which the sun was absent, the glowing platform lights gave hope to those cold-blooded creatures.

To my right, my red-coloured train complacently grunted as more and more people hurriedly climbed into it. I started walking to my coach when suddenly a warm exhalation of air from the train’s air-conditioning unit ruffled my hair. I could care less about it, as I walked up to my coach and stepped inside.

A cold air and a smell distinct to Northern Railways greeted me. The coach of the train was congested much like the cities of urban India. Aisles were narrow to the extent that two adults could not walk shoulder-to-shoulder, azure coloured berths on which Indians of various shapes and kinds were sitting on and windows so coated with pollution that one could barely look outside.

My seat number was one and it was occupied by a man who seemed to be in his late fifties. He asked me if I could swap my seat for his and I instantly knew why – mine was the lower berth and his was the upper. Obligated by the Indian custom of offering the lower berth to the elders, I unenthusiastically gave him a non-verbal affirmation in the form of a nod. He smiled.

I picked up my packet of packed linen, which was half torn and opened it to reveal a white hand towel and a white sheet. That packet contained two sheets, one to use as bedding and the other to use as lining for the blanket, a pillow cover for the pigmy pillow and a hand towel that different classes of Indians used differently. The rich, before disembarking, rubbed their shoes with it; the middle class used it as a table napkin and the poor lower class, which seldom got a chance to travel in a two-tier air-conditioned coach, spread it over their pillows so that they don’t leave oil stains on its laundered white surface.

I spread one of those sheets and noticed a man on the seat by the aisle, looking impertinently at me. He had his shoes under his pillow and his luggage chained to the seat. ‘Indianism is a disease’; I let out a deep breath and climbed on my seat. I quickly engaged myself in reading from my phone a novel about a young rich man with a mysterious past who lives on the West Egg and throws sinful lavish parties every week.

The train started moving and soon rocked me to sleep. I dreamt of being in the intolerable company of a disturbing distant relative, a half-bald uncle who squinted disapprovingly at everyone. His round face atop which sat his partly closed eyes, small nose, grey moustache and fat lips, was lit up with happiness as he danced around me mocking me for something which I failed to recall. In the dream, his clownery got me enraged, but also made me smile.

I woke up when I felt a hand touching my shoulder. ‘Wake up, we have reached Dehradun,’ the person revealed. My eyes opened to see the face of the man whom I had swapped berths with and I thought, ‘this is his way of thanking me for letting him have the lower berth.’ I smiled. I wore my wing-tipped brogues, picked up my American Tourister and headed for the lavatory. I washed my face and detrained while a Bollywood song played on in my head.

There was a festive freshness in Dehradun’s weather which I could not refrain from noticing. I filled my lungs with a deep breath of that morning fresh air while my eyes surveyed the surroundings – a grey platform, white walls, red trains, green trees, blue sky and discoloured mountains behind a smoky white screen of distance.

I silently walked past the cuddling honeymooners, bringing myself out of the humble railway station and exposing myself to a swarm of autorickshaw drivers who were possessed by their mind that perceived each individual emerging from the front gate of the station as a possible paying passenger. Each autorickshaw driver in my sight had two hands and most of those hands were busy. Some hands were hoisted in the air and their wrists were flapping aimlessly as a call of invitation to the travelers, some hands held keys to the vehicles they maneuvered, some hands held the morning newspaper with its bittersweet news, some hands held cups of hot tea and some hands were hiding in the pant pockets covertly scratching the groin.

I got into one of those autorickshaws and asked the driver to take me to a hotel nearby. In those days if I had to stay in a hotel for a time less than what it takes for the minute hand of the clock to make five circles, I went for a basic one. All I looked for was clean bathrooms and beds on which no one had been murdered. I found one such establishment near to the railway station. It had four floors, forty rooms, narrow corridors with many turns and bulbs that shot bright yellow light that reflected on the white tiled floor.

I got my shoes and shirt off and laid down on the bed. I turned on the TV and it was filled with shows on Independence Day. It was August 14, the eve of Indian independence. Politicians filled with phony patriotism spoke in front of the Indian flag and the Prime Minister’s photo. I flipped to another channel where a singer was dancing with a crew of Indian wrestlers. I turned off the TV and laid down in Shavasana – eyes closed, palms turned heavenward, hands parallel to the hips and body straight like a corpse. I started breathing deeply and slowly, and soon slipped into slumber.

A game of football was being played in a park, the kinds of which were found in every government housing colony. I ran towards the goal post of the opposite team alongside my team-mate who had the ball. I was sweating and so was he; the sun was singing an unpleasant melody. As the players galloped, their studs uprooted strands of grass that flew to the height of their ankles and fell to the ground. Abruptly my team-mate leaped and passed the ball to me. I stopped it with a soft touch of my left foot and took control of it. The goal post was about fifteen feet away from me. I steadied myself to shoot. The ball flew and I lost balance, the sun was on my face, the ball half blocking it, as I fell down on my back. I woke up with a start. The dream kept me confused for a few minutes.

I got up and went for a shower. After dressing up in the obligatory professional colours of white and grey, I called room service.

‘What’s for breakfast?’

‘Omelette-bread, bun-butter, butter-toast, poha,’ an untrained voice on customer service replied.

‘Thank you,’ I said and plunged into a half-mumbling conversation with myself in which I decided to not eat any of that what was being offered to me by the untrained room service attendant, but go on an adventure of finding an eatery with an exciting menu in a city that was unexplored by me.

By the time I left the hotel, monsoon had already washed the streets. It was still raining. Fat drops of rain fell at a relaxed distance from each other. The only transport available at that time was again an autorickshaw, so I half-heartedly tiptoed to the vehicle dodging small puddles exhausted by the number of ripples that raindrops forced into them. I sat inside and the driver demanded fifty rupees for where I wanted to go – Kanhaiya Poori Shop, named after the heterosexual god Krishna, next to a temple of the celibate god Hanuman.

The pooris were an adorable affair. Far from the snobbishness of South Delhi, the place where I lived, the food was modest and mouth-watering. Compared to the taste, the shop and the seating were in such bad shape that it seemed they were too humble to estimate their own merits. And just like the shop the owner too, a frail old man with sunken eyes and a military haircut, was far from boasting.

He said to me, offering a dish made of pumpkin, ‘Sahib, have some more sabzi.’

I smiled and gestured to put a spoonful of that pumpkin on my plate. ‘Yes, thank you.’

The old man who cooked pooris and served tables, winked joyfully at me. ‘Achhe din aa gaye, isn’t it sir!’ The remark he made was a take on the Prime Minister’s slogan during the election campaign. ‘Good days, coming soon.’

I smiled and dove into a monologue about how this venom of politics has permeated to the core of the world. It’s like you irrigate a great field with venom and then no matter what crop grows on it, they will be poisonous.

After breakfast, I headed to the office. It was raining and Dehradun, from my eyes and from the eyes of those racing raindrops, through which you could look at small fires cuddled under damp roofs, darkened chimneys coughing thin white smoke, nimble wind slapping comfortably-cold water on the face of sullen trees and coloured flowers imbalanced by the impetuous change in the mood of the morning, looked beautiful.

The day at office was enjoyably tiring. I was a consultant helping the company during its transition period. Change: one of the inevitable properties of the universe, which is as much applicable to inanimate things as animate things, but is both difficult to manage as it is to accept. Change brings confrontation; it also brings confusion. Change brings autumn and change brings spring. What human beings need to understand is that change is not an obstruction but a gradual process that goes on in the background of everyday affairs. What we see and what we call change is the result of those gradual affairs.

From my office, which was on the Rajpur road, the Dehradun railway station was about 7 kilometres, Dehradun ISBT was about 14 kilometres and Jolly Grant airport was about 30 kilometres. Everyone in the office suggested that I travel by train as it was customary for them to help me till I could find a mode of transport back to Delhi and the railway station was the nearest. Even I preferred to travel by train, however on the occasion being discussed the tickets were unavailable so I was compulsorily diverted to travelling by bus

My bus was the 6:30 PM Volvo, which most Indians proudly liked to describe as ‘air-conditioned’. The bus that had two seats to the left of the aisle and two seats to the right, on which people made themselves as comfortable as they could be. My colleagues advised that we should leave by 5:50 PM, so as soon as it was time, my American Tourister was carried by one of the housekeeping staff to the car, which was to take me to Clement Town, where inside the premises of the horse-shoe shaped Inter State Bus Terminal, my crimson coloured mode of transport was waiting. For some reason I have always felt that trains want to accommodate you and buses want to disown you; trains are the orphanages and buses are the abortion clinics.

I reached the ISBT earlier than the time of departure. I bid goodbye to my colleague, attentively attaching with it a thank you and walked towards the building. On the pavement to my right, just short of the entry and exit gates I saw a thick moustached man selling guavas heaped on a cart. He was eyeing a tap that was voluntarily presenting to the scene a steady stream of drinking water. The guava seller picked up his weighing pan from the scales, turned it upside-down and knocked it twice on one edge of the cart. He then walked to the tap dragging his feet and filled the pan with water. He then sat down squatting and poured water from his left hand on his right palm, which was fixed to his lower lip like an eave. Once he drank the weighing pan empty, he got up and walked back to his cart, dabbing his lips with his shirt collar. I walked inside the building as well.

By the time I bought a packet of chips, the passengers had started boarding. I unhurriedly walked to the tall vehicle and climbed aboard. My seat number was 14 and I had intentionally booked it because the seat next to it was a number that most people have an irrational fear of. And because people are overcome by a superstitious avoidance of the number 13, no one voluntarily opts to sit there; which means, more room for the passenger on seat number 14.

The bus was almost full to its capacity save for a few seats. Still the conductor kept vigil for more passengers like a lascar in a lifeboat saving souls. My co-passengers were all young, most of them from the many boarding schools in Dehradun going home on the eve of Independence Day. It was a long weekend. We were sitting in the bus on a Thursday and Independence Day was on Friday, then it was Saturday and Sunday, the official weekend of the western world followed by Krishna Janmashtami, birthday of the eighth avatar of Vishnu on Monday.

There were only a few people my age, looking odd in their trousers and shirts in a crowd of t-shirts, jeans and hot pants. The bus moved with a jerk, it grunted as the driver lazily put it in reverse gear. We had come out of the bus-bay now and figures I could see from the large windows were all muted. A hum of chatter was alive when the bus stopped again. Its door opened and a lady, seemingly in her early twenties entered.

She was about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches, had fair skin and hair that relaxed into waves near their tips. I did not look at her face long enough to notice its features but I did see that the conductor was walking her towards me. When the bus jerked again and moved forward, she was sitting on seat number 13, breathing with exertion.

I opened my packet of chips and started eating one chip at a time. My actions, in the company of a female passenger had become artificially mannered, my hands and legs were attentively stiffened and my breathing was controlled.

As the bus drove downhill on the Ghat Road of National Highway 72, shaking passengers in the direction perpendicular to the direction of their noses, I felt as though it desired for the variety of Indians nestled inside it, like ducklings under the feathers of a duck, to truly unite. It was at that moment that my coarse feelings for the bus changed – not wholly but partially – allowing a hint of positivity in the negative nature of the inanimate creature.

The bus was negotiating a hairpin turn to the right and gravity had ordered everyone to lean left, when a patch of light fell on her hands and I studied my co-passenger for the first time since she sat next to me. Her hands were slender with skin faintly wrinkled like that of a baby. Her fingers were delicate, but confident in the way they held on to her bag and phone. Her nails looked like petals of a certain flower that blooms only at nightfall. I wondered how awe-inspiring they would appear in the golden gleam of the sun.

There was something about her. She drew me to her like a flower draws a bee. I had this sudden urge to talk to her. I was searching for a meaningful topic to start a conversation but all discussable dialogue starters were deposited in a locker, the key of which was lost. In darkness the bus towed on; its bright yellow headlights clearing the way. We had reached Saharanpur now, a place famous for bitter communal feelings, to which politicians add more flavour – bitter. A police checkpoint made the vehicles slow down and fight their way through the barricades. My dislike for the bus had returned now as randomly as it had exited and I shifted restlessly in my seat twice.

‘Do you travel on this route regularly?’ a voice came from my left, posting a keen question to me. It was not a voice that I could call sweet but it was one of those that could fulfill their purpose.

I replied, ‘Not very, but yes I do,’ and turned my head so that she was visible through the corner of my eye. She nodded.

In the time that she gave the brief nod, I studied her face. A simple face with deep eyes that were not too big and a curious smile; there were shapely eyebrows, high cheekbones and a perfectly poised nose.

‘Are you a regular on this route?’ I asked in my desperate attempt to not let the conversation die.

She smiled. ‘No, this is the first time that I’m travelling by bus from Dehradun to anywhere.’

I nodded in answer.

A man to my right, across the aisle was looking intently at me. I looked at him and smiled in acknowledgement.

‘Are you a consultant?’ he asked me authoritatively.

Intrigued by his question I replied, ‘Yes, but how did you know that?’

‘I didn’t, you know. Else I wouldn’t have asked.’

‘Right, I see.’

‘I am a training and development guy, you know. So I know who is who the moment I see them,’ he said, animatedly.

‘That is not an easy skill to learn,’ I replied, partly being polite and partly in the quest to say something that could end the conversation as the majority of my interest was invested in interacting with my co-passenger on seat number 13.

‘Who said I learnt it?’ he spoke in a raised voice after a pause as the bus darted along an open highway, violently sounding the horn to warn a few two-wheeled vehicle riders of its coming. ‘I earned it.’

Surprised with his way of speaking, I glanced to my left where my co-passenger was visibly entertained. Sitting next to me sunken in her seat, she looked so deliciously charismatic that I wanted to kiss her forehead. She was one of those people for whom you can instantly take a liking; irrationally adorable.

‘Oh, wow. Okay,’ I replied listlessly.

He scratched the underside of his left thigh and his exposed leg made me notice his dressing. He was wearing flip-flops, baggy shorts and a round neck t-shirt. His eyes were fixed on a girl half his age, wearing a gunjee and hot pants, sitting immediately behind the driver’s seat. The girl was a fantastic containment of energy, she moved her head and hands and legs in sudden bursts of excitement. She was travelling with a male friend and two female friends, with whom she was discussing an erotic romance novel they had recently read. And with the loud volumes in which they spoke of bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism in sexual practices, I felt they wanted to announce to any middle or old-aged individuals present in their surroundings that the new India is bold and brash and it is arriving sooner than anyone would have expected.

At around 10:30 PM, the bus moved haggardly on the Muzaffarnagar-Meerut highway. It had been moving without a stop ever since we left Dehradun. My co-passenger on seat number 13 had earphones plugged into her ears and her eyes closed. The man across the aisle had fallen asleep or so he pretended. And in that moment of existence, I imagined myself as an island in an archipelago, surrounded by other islands but yet cut-off from each other.

Through the windscreen of the bus some lights could be seen coming from the glowing neon signs of highway hotels. Soon after, I found the bus heading towards one of them. The driver parked the bus and killed the engine. The continual vibrations it gave also died. The passengers came to life.

‘Where are we?’

‘Is it Dilli?’

Someone said, ‘No, it’s just a rest stop.’

Most people got down from the bus and some kept sitting. Of those few who remained in the bus, some lay asleep while others sat awake like guardians. I was one of the guardians until the voice from my left originated again.

‘I need to go out.’

I got up and cleared way for her to come out from those cramped seats. Then I smiled as I gestured with my hand like a durbaan, but she didn’t notice. I sat down in my seat for some time and then got down from the bus. The restaurant was a garish affair. I came out of it as briskly as I had walked inside. I walked for a short while before coming back to my seat in the bus. Soon my co-passenger on seat number 13 also came inside and she was talking with a girl who was sitting behind us.

‘Is it painful?’ the girl asked.

‘No, mammography is just like an x-ray,’ my co-passenger said.

‘Have you ever performed it?’ the girl asked, settling in her seat.

‘No, that’s not my field,’ my co-passenger replied as she took a sip from the coffee she had brought.

I stood up to give her some space to get to her seat and as I sat down I looked around the bus, which was mostly empty and then at her, the lady who had intrigued me since she sat next to me. Her movements were graceful, her speech was ascertained with each word apportioned and there was an undeniable restfulness about her. When her conversation with the girl was over, I started talking to her.

‘If you wouldn’t find me terribly intrusive, may I ask if you are a doctor?’

‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘I am a resident in the Military Hospital, Dehradun.’

‘So did you opt to serve the armed forces or did your college place you here?’

‘My college sent me here,’ she said. ‘I have studied from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, and they have this mandate that all graduates must serve in the military for 3 years before going for a Masters degree.’

‘Interesting. So who is a doctor in your family?’ I threw a random guess and her reply came.

‘My father,’ she smiled.

‘And what does he specialize in?’

‘Ophthalmology’

The bus started with a thrust. Passengers had arrived refreshed. The man across the aisle was sitting with renewed energy. The girl behind the driver’s seat was reading something on her laptop – another erotic novel, perhaps. The girl sitting behind us was half drowsy and my co-passenger gazed outside the large windows of the bus with an expression that I could not quite read.

I had met her in another world perhaps, in another time. She seemed so familiar, like she was made from a part of my own soul. Every now and then, through the corner of my eye I would catch a glimpse of her – reclined in her seat, some stray strands of hair falling on her face, yellow and white lights from the road made her cheeks glow.

‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but listen to your conversation,’ I said referring to one of her telephonic conversations I had eavesdropped upon. ‘Are you going to Jaipur?’

‘Yes,’ she replied and then fell silent. I had no reply to her yes and her frozen answer hinted me to not let the conversation warm up.

There was a monumental paisley pattern made of coloured glass. It was blue with grey borders lined with red coloured flowers. A yellow coloured fire was burning in its belly. The sun was behind the paisley, through which a coloured shadow was casted on the floor. On that floor there was a bench – a wooden bench painted parrot green. A solitary figure was sitting on that bench with an assemblage of flowers white, red and yellow tied together with a ribbon. I was that solitary figure. At that moment, another figure entered the scene. This figure, whose face was shrouded in darkness, was of a woman, wearing a sumptuously adorned white dress. She walked towards the bench. The solitary figure on the bench turned towards her. She sat down next to him under the coloured shadow of the paisley. Suddenly, there was a jerk as everything fell forward as though a huge force had pushed the earth itself. The bus driver had applied the brake to save someone who had emerged out of nowhere on the road. I woke up from the dream with such a start that even my co-passenger took notice.

I realised that my throat was parched and drank a lot of water.

‘These assholes don’t know how to drive,’ the man across the aisle remarked, leaning towards me confidentially.

‘It wasn’t actually his fault; someone drove a tractor to the middle of the road.’ A voice, right ahead of my seat, responded to him saving me from the conversation. Then they started conversing with one another.

‘Are you from Delhi?’ my co-passenger unexpectedly asked me.

Yes, I am.

‘Do you know if there would be any buses going to Jaipur in the night?’ she asked in the same calm and composed way she had been speaking since the beginning.

‘Honestly, I don’t. But you can check it on the internet.’

‘Well, that’s what I thought, but I used up the data limit on my phone,’ she said, turning the face of her phone towards me.

‘That’s not a problem; the data limit on my phone is far from being exceeded.’

I gave my phone to her and she checked on a few websites and found that there were no buses departing after midnight. Her sullen expression hinted that her plans were getting jeopardized.

‘It doesn’t show any buses here but I called the ISBT in Delhi before leaving Dehradun and they said that there were buses.’ She handed my phone to me.

‘So, what all places are you going to visit in Jaipur?’ I asked, trying to change the course of the conversation.

But before my co-passenger could answer, the girl behind her seat abruptly intervened. “Can I have your number, doctor?”

My co-passenger smiled. ‘Yes, give me your phone, I’ll type it in.’

She gave her the phone and then asked my co-passenger to save her number as well and then announced, ‘My name is Ankita.’

‘I have family in Jaipur. It is my home,’ my co-passenger spoke to me.

‘Doctor, you are a Lieutenant as well!’ Ankita excitedly remarked.

My co-passenger smiled. The man across the aisle looked at her and then at me and smiled. I smiled too. A smile that had no certain reason for its origin.

‘I’m going to give them a surprise,’ she spoke after a pause.

In the darkness, the dusty black tyres of the bus raced aggressively on the black carpet of the road. Delhi was now not very far and caught in a crowd of things to say, I was worried I would not be able to say it all to my co-passenger, who was still unknown to me like a winter night.

‘Family is everything,’ I said. ‘Anyone who cares for their family is a good person,’ I said, looking at her.

 ‘It’s something that comes to you by birth.’

‘You mean people are good or bad by birth and the way they are raised has no hand to play in it?’

‘Yes, pretty much,’ she remarked amid the noises of the two trucks that the bus had passed.

‘What do you think a child would become if we keep them away from the knowledge of what we call good and bad, away from learning things we classify as positive or negative, till the time they reach an age that we call adulthood? Would that child become a good person or a bad person?’

‘I don’t know. It would depend on their genes maybe.’ She spoke in the same manner she had been speaking throughout – thoughtfully, carefully. She paused a moment and then spoke again. ‘You should study Microgenetic Design; it’s a part of Development Psychology.’

I did not know what Microgenetic Design was so I chose to stay silent. In the remaining 40 minutes or so to my disembarking point, we talked about a variety of things, changing topics randomly; filling our plate like one does in a buffet – small portions of many different things. For a moment I felt like we were happy being together. She talked, in the voice that I was delighted to hear, and I listened. And somewhere in the sequence of those events, I noticed what she was wearing – blue jeans, white t-shirt over which there was a blue shirt and a blue scarf on which there were paisley patterns with grey borders lined with red flowers. A yellow fire burning in the belly of the paisley.

Before I got down from the bus, I wanted to give her my card and I had been thinking whether I should or not. My feelings at that time were an alloy of attraction and apprehension. My hand visited my pocket several times but did not pull out the card. I thought I would not give it to her unless she asks for it.

‘Two months from now, I would be going to serve at the Indian border,’ she said.

‘You are going to have a very good experience, I am sure of that,’ I spoke.

‘I was thinking of keeping a journal. Record it.’

‘I would like to read it sometime’

‘Give me your email id, I’ll send it to you.’

I gave her my business card, holding it with both hands like Japanese do. In the illusion of that moment, to me, I was a heroic man. As the bus neared my stop I wanted time to slow down and the night to settle in a sleep. But reality kept everyone awake; except for the passengers of that bus. When I got up from my seat in that moving bus at 12:34 AM and looked around, curtains were closed on all eyes.

I wanted to tell Ankita that she will be alright. I wanted to sit with my co-passenger on seat number 13 a little longer, my co-passenger with whom I had fallen in love with. And I wanted to tell everyone that it was August 15 now, so they could be happy for their freedom. But the bus came to a stop at my disembarking point and the driver opened the door for me and I got down.

It was when the bus departed that I realized how foolish I had been. I had not asked for her email id nor her phone number, I did not even know her name! All I knew, after those six hours of proximity was that the girl I had travelled with was a doctor in the Military Hospital at Dehradun, a girl who had thoroughly impressed me with her knowledge and a girl who was beautiful in such a simple way that her beauty was almost divine.”

*

He put the empty plate of dessert on the glass-top white wooden centre table and crossed his legs. His niece was on an ottoman to his right leaning on the right arm of the bergère he was seated in and his nephew was seated on the carpet with his back resting on the left foot of the same bergère. His brother had heard the story, the complete story, twice before as well. His brother’s wife had heard it once before. But the children had heard it for the first time, so they had questions.

The niece went first, visibly concerned. “So Uncle, why did you not go to Dehradun again? Go to the Military Hospital, you can find her there!”

He let out a deep breath. “I’ll just wait for her to email. I’m not that outgoing, you know,” he smiled.

“I hope she mails soon,” his nephew said. “Good night Uncle, I’m sleepy now.”

“Good night, my knight,” he said and patted his nephew’s cheeks.

“That’s not fair Uncle, you should’ve tried to find her,” his niece spoke again and looked at her parents. “Maybe she’s waiting for you as well.”

“Okay now, that’s enough questioning for tonight,” his brother’s wife spoke. “You’ve got school tomorrow; go to bed now.”

He did not say anything; just lowered his eyes towards the carpet.

“But shouldn’t we let people know if we love them?” his niece appealed.

His brother intervened, “Your knowledge on the subject is appealing darling, but you don’t know the entire story.”

He raised his eyes and looked at his brother with an uncomfortable expression that had a hint of suppressed anger.

“Let’s call it a night, shall we?” his brother’s wife quickly added.

“Not before I know the entire story!” his niece demanded.

He looked at her and faintly smiled. A visible pain filled his eyes. He put his large hand on his niece’s head and glanced at his brother and the brother’s wife. “You want to know the entire story?”

His niece nodded.

“Well, I did go in search of her and wandered through Dehradun, Jaipur and Delhi. But I didn’t find her. Then I decided to go search for her at the Indian border, but there was one difficulty – India has more than 15,000 kilometres of land border and more than 7,500 kilometres of coastline and she had not mentioned to me which border she would be going to. Nonetheless, I deduced that she would’ve headed north as that is where the most trouble is. So I took off for Kashmir.

In Kashmir I started looking for her in Srinagar but the challenge was great, you see, for I had no name, no picture, just a faint description that I had gathered in a few hours of the night. So I headed for places where the army was stationed, but they wouldn’t let me in. I even bribed a few guards at medical establishments into giving me some information but it was all useless. Until one day, when I found a man who agreed to share with me her whereabouts. He advised that I would find her in Pahalgam. So I headed for Pahalgam.

It was a nice place with its curving river that teases the green coat of the valley as it passes by. The sky there was bright blue and the clouds cotton white. And it was cold! 8 degree Celsius in September. It was a tourist place so locals were nice but it was done in a rather commercial way. Everyone laughed or mocked or thought of me as one lunatic when I asked them if they had seen her. One evening, when my efforts seemed to be vanishing just like the sun, I met a man in a tea shop who claimed to have seen her. He admitted to have spoken with her and said that she had mentioned Shopian. So I immediately started my journey towards Shopian.

This was a well-connected place in Kashmir, known for its apples and violence and educational institutions and political differences. The beauty of that place and the viciousness were so stark and so abrupt that each time the surroundings changed well before you came to terms with them. I went to all the places where I thought she could be and to places where I thought she would not. I was tired and a bit unwell. One afternoon, I was sitting in a small broken eatery that served kebabs, eating slowly. I felt a pain in my chest and found it difficult to breathe, before I could know what was happening, I fell unconscious. I opened my eyes in the District Hospital where upon inquiring I came to know that I had suffered an attack of angina with no apparent reason except for stress or anxiety. I slowed down a bit after that. I was discharged from the hospital three days later and a week after that, there was a bomb blast in the city, so someone advised that I should go to Baramulla.

In Baramulla, I took a red walled house on rent, in the new town located on the south bank of the Jhelum River. I went for walks in and around Dewan Bagh and at times across the river till Gulnar Park in the old town. I had mountains to look at, covered with white powdery snow. And I had the song of the Jhelum to listen to, but my heart ached for the one I searched for. Baramulla was fascinating with its religious shrines and historical references but to me it echoed hollow, so I left in the first week of October. My destination this time was no particular city, but the road.

I started on the National Highway 1A, famous for the avalanches and landslides it struggled with, and then shifted course to the Sangrama – Sopore road all the way till it reaches a point near which the Jhelum gives birth to the Wular lake – a massive body of fresh water, set as an example of nature’s power. From there I turned towards the Sopore – Kupwara road and passing breathtakingly beautiful apple orchards and paddy fields, I reached Kupwara. There I had tea near the Talri River at a point where on the other side you could see the Kupwara forest and then started again on the Kupwara – Kralpora road.

I must have travelled for 6 or 7 kilometres when one of the car tyres got punctured. I got down to replace it with the spare and found out that the spare was punctured as well. I had no option but to ask for help, which was scarce. I asked a man whom I saw wrapped in a brown blanket stationed outside a weathered accommodation that had broken asbestos sheets for roof and he pointed at a snaky road that went right off the highway on the soft slope of the mountain. Left without a choice, I held the spare between my elbow and my waist and walked in the direction he had directed me to.

It was a military area; base of sorts. I walked at its entrance gate and asked for help; evening had started to set in. At first they refused but when I pleaded they agreed. By the time a repairman came from one of the many grey-roofed buildings fixed my spare tyre, it had become dark. It was cold and the military-man advised that it would not be safe to travel at night, so he asked me to spend the night there. He offered me whisky and a dinner of dal-roti, which I could not refuse.

Morning came early for the soldiers and I was on my feet with them. I shared my contact details with the repairman and invited him to my residence on the occasion that he visits Delhi. I held the spare in the same way that women in rural India hold pitchers to be filled at wells and started walking my way out. I had barely started walking on that snaky road back to the highway when I saw three women jogging – dressed in army clothes, their ponytails bouncing in synchronization– towards the military area. What raised my eyebrows was that the girl in the middle of that jogging trio bore a great resemblance to my co-passenger on seat number 13.

‘Excuse me!’ I let out a cry as they passed.

They stopped and looked at me; one rather angrily as I had hindered their workout.

‘Remember me?’ I asked.

She looked at me intently, trying to recall, and then relaxed her forehead as a smile lit her face.

‘You were in that bus, weren’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes, I was.’

She chuckled. ‘What a surprise! What brings you here?’ Her voice reflected the adrenaline rush her body was going through.

‘I...’ I hesitated. ‘I came looking for you.’

Her mates turned to her like best friends in college do.

‘You look great,’ I said. ‘The uniform really amplifies your charisma.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I missed you.’

She asked her mates for a private moment and they departed.

‘I missed you too,’ she said and came up to me. She placed her right hand on my chest. ‘You thought I won’t email you?’

Without answering I kissed her forehead, something that I had long wanted to do. She lowered her gaze.

Now you go,’ she warned. ‘Or they would ask me to leave as well.’

I expressed to her my love and stated that I shall be waiting for her and her mail. She acknowledged and said that I would hear from her as soon as she finds a computer, an internet connection and adequate time to write the details of her experiences. I bid her goodbye and watched her walk inside the military camp and then came back to Delhi. And then, here we are.”

*

“So, she will email you, right?” his niece asked.

“Yes, she will.”

“Great. Thank you Uncle for sharing all that with me. I love you.” His niece hugged him.

“Oh, thank you for that.”

“Good night Uncle!”

“Good night,” he said and got up from his chair stretching his back.

His brother and his brother’s wife rose as well.

“I need that cigarette now.” He walked outside the house.

“All that happened and you never told me?” his brother’s wife complained to her husband.

His brother’s eyes blinked in a concealing way, his lips quivering as he broke into silent sobs.

His wife put her hand on his shoulder, “what happened?!”

He kept weeping. After a while when his bout of sobbing had decreased he held his breath and spoke. “After brother had returned from Dehrdadun he was disturbed and two days later he revealed that it was because of a girl he had met in the bus on his return journey. Few days later, one morning, he left home saying that he would not be back for some days as he was going out of station for office work. When those ‘some days’ turned to a week, we started to get worried. Sometimes he answered our calls and sometimes he didn’t. So, a few days later, I left home to get him back. I kept in touch with him and he finally started sharing with me the details of all the places he had been visiting in Kashmir. I went to Kashmir and found him. He was outside the military area, his car and belongings missing, he was sitting on the road – crying at times and at times laughing. It obviously struck me that he was unwell so I immediately brought him to Delhi and took him to the doctors where we found out that he had developed a mental disorder.”

His wife, almost exhausted with the rapidly changing information she had received that evening, asked him, “so how did this suddenly happen? Did the girl turn him down? Did he experience some emotional trauma there?”

“When we came back, I started checking the details of all his travels in the past six months. Nothing was suspicious. So, I focused on that one journey from Dehradun to Delhi on the night of August 14, which he was so fixated about. I took help from a friend of mine who is a Deputy Commissioner of Police to extract the details of all the passengers in the red Volvo brother travelled in.”

“Did you find it?” his wife interrupted.

“Yes, I did.”

The front door of the house opened and he entered after having smoked the cigarette. “Good night,” he said to his brother and his brother’s wife and went inside his room.

“What did you find?” his brother’s wife quickly caught on to the broken conversation. “Who was on seat number 13?”

“No one.”