she offered to make me tea. "strong cha" she said, "i like it strong". i had stopped drinking tea after i felt that i would get addicted to it. same had been the case with all addictions. comics when i was a kid, tv all through teenage, booze and cigarettes when i was old enough to buy them.
i was afraid of addictions. they made one dependent. thinking on those lines i felt liking a person too much was also kind of an addiction. it had its own dependencies. and unlike objects, people were very volatile. one couldnt expect consistency from them. so i arrived at conclusion that addiction to a substance was better than being addicted to a person. Atleast things behaved and thought the same all the time. there was no sudden change in feeling one day to another if i tell a cigarette that i wished to feel the post combustion tobacco spread tar in my lungs.
all that was until she came into my life. suddenly all that i had learned and concluded did not matter even the tiniest bit.
i looked around. there were a few magazines, news papers, a couple of framed photographs - one with a young boy, her brother i supposed, one book half read 'men are from mars women from venus'. the tea arrived on a nice looking tray, the room getting filled with the fragrance. "thats a lovely book. you should read it some time."
i sat trying to sip the exceptionally delicious tea that she had prepared. ever so gingerly cos it was fresh off the fire and super hot. i noticed that she was used to drinking piping hot tea with the grace of a swan sipping the water from a sparkling pond. trying to pretend that i too could do it, i gave up when my tongue protested rather strongly for the fourth time and tears appeared in the corner of my eyes.
she smiled, took the cup from me and placed it on the small tepoy that stood expectantly between us. "let it get cold. i prefer tea right off the fire. theres an art to drinking really hot tea. i will teach it to you some other time". there would be another time. hmm. that felt nice. increasing the heart beat rate and blood pressure indirectly. i sat looking here and there while she finished her tea.
"so.. you are into software. must be pretty dull." she said making me raise an eyebrow slightly.
"it pays good money. and thats where you tend to end up once you complete your engineering degree in computer science" as if to confirm the point she made, i felt i sounded dull.. did i do it only for the money? yes, one needed to think about food. and thoughts of food were never far from my mind. though i was more of a eat lots of a particular thing kind of person than the taste 25 different things and enjoy each one kind. i wondered if she also loved food like i did. did not look like a foodie from the way she looked. but one could never say with these ladies. they went on strict diets and exercise regimes to eat well and yet look fantastic. in my opinion exercise and diets were activities that belonged on another planet. venus that is.
"ha ha ha.. i dance.. and study and do some free lancing when time permits. the cash flow is irregular and sometimes unsubstantial but then i can always call up dad to help me out with the telephone bills for the month." She kept on grinning.
her smile was genuine. full of happiness. not the kind of fake smiles i sometimes saw in office while passing each other down the aisle between cubicles. i met her eye. i noticed that our eyes were of the same color. one moment they were the sharp kind of eyes that would bore through to your deepest core and in the next soften to accept and soothe all the pain that lay there.
"doesnt it feel kind of bad to ask your parents for support?" i asked wanting to project a 'stand on my own two feet' kind of image. i was still bothered with her remark which called my job dull. by god did she even understand the pressure when it came to debugging a self task that was corrupting random memory each time it ran? or a safe looking api leaking memory like the bucket in my old room ? and the tides of sheer frustration and joy alternating when you find the solution staring at you in a simple single line correction of code which did not flash for good part of a day and a half?
how could i impress upon her that the software industry is also like one of the creative arts? the algorithms that were built on foundations of cold and hard logic would carry upon them such beautiful ways of handling myriad variations of the problem it was meant to address. oooh.. it was like a painters brush in action.. a series of lines of code that broke the situation into millions of tiny problems to be solved. and one by one as the code executed, the problem in hand would reduce, reduce, reduce and finally be gone.. whether she would believe me if i said that the euphoria that one felt after finishing off a feature in a large module single handedly on time was similar to what a musician might feel after finishing off a composition? ah.. it was useless. the stereotype, the branding, the label. it was impossible to shake off.
"i know. but they are glad to help me out when i need and it makes them happy too. they wanted me to stay in home town and continue studying. but i felt i needed to see a little more of life. so i decided to come to this big town and learn things the way they are meant to be learned." i could sense a strong appetite for risk. she would do well in the indian markets which were currently getting smashed around one day by the bears and the next day taken to the heavens by the bulls.
"and what have you learned till now?" my story was quite different. i just took the ordinary path and got lucky multiple times on the way. managed to get into a good college and got a great job by the time i graduated. then moved to the big city and was there ever since.
"ha ha ha. you are sounding so cautious. are you trying to impress me by sounding all attentive?" i protested lamely and grabbed at the cup of tea, spilling some in the process, trying to hide behind it. she was laughing loudly now. her head thrown back. her laughter echoed off the walls of the sparsely furnished room. laughter full of heart. laughter filled with a sense of fun and abandon.
"you idiot, you will screw it up." i said to myself as she went in to get something to clean off the spilled tea. what would she think of my reaction? she had taken me by surprise. i was playing by the book. and she got into my head and saw straight through it.
"ha ha ha .. just kidding yaar. i couldnt resist the opportunity to make you a little hot under the collar. the look on your face was so worthy of a snap." she was a naughty devil. having her fun while getting acquainted. no inhibitions or wanting to make the other person comfortable. all natural and sraightforward. something that made me like her even more.
"shall we go for a walk by the sea?" she said as she cleaned up the mess i had created. "maybe that will help you relax. the fresh salt water spray is always rejuvenating." she was taking control. what should i do now? letting her lead the way would mean submitting to her. i wanted a little control back. "only if you let me choose the restaurant we dine at tonight." yes she could have the control of the evening but when it came to food i would have the decision making hand. yes. i felt like the real winner. to have countered her move with another of my own. we would eat pizza.
she laughed again and led me to the door. she was a jolly person i thought. always a smile on her face and laughing with every moment available. why was she so happy? was she posing happy? i mean how can one be happy doing the same thing again and again? if new things keep coming then the excitement and sheer newness keeps ones spirit up. i had read a book. which said that each moment that came into our life was brand new. and that it was our thoughts and impressions from our memory that dragged the newness of the current moment into the past. leaving a dry taste in the mouth due to the lost newness, the lost freshness - the stale moment, reeking of past. she did not seem to be having that attitude. anyway, i could not say it now since there was nothing connecting us in the past so no memories or expectations.
we had reached the bottom of the staircase, she having refused to take the lift. "you of all the people should not take the lift. roly poly boyya. walk as much as you can." never before had someone hinted at my bulk and left a pleasant-ish kind of feeling in my heart. another first with this lady. "brother, slow down... stop building castles." i said to myself as that feeling of gratitude began rising in my heart which usually comes when someone is especially concerned about you.
"these people na. they throw their garbage on the road. no sense of cleanliness at all. their house clean, public property is garbage dump" i saw her frown and wrinkle her nose. i used to hang the garbage in a plastic bag on the gate. the garbage collector lady would come early morning and collect it. she would also collect 20 bucks a month for this service though the government paid her a regular sum.
we walked down the road slowly. me trying hard to come up with some interesting topic in my blank mind... digging digging, she with complete ease pointing to one thing and another and telling me something that associated her to them. "on the first day i came here, i turned right on that road. the one way board is by the shrubbery, i could not see it. you should have seen the look on the face of oncoming riders. ha ha ha.." i could see the one way sign clearly. "i complained about it and they removed the over hanging branches" as she followed my gaze and read my thoughts again.
i was feeling like a transparent piece of glass already. was i so easy to read? the book had said that most women liked mysterious men. if that were the case then i had lost the battle before it even began. maybe she had already categorised me into the friendship zone.
consciously i walked alongside her, taking care that she set the pace and that the distance between was governed by her. i always was of the belief that ladies should be allowed to set the pace and degree of closeness. i was afraid that i will go too close too soon and then she would be offended by it. and again closeness was a matter that both people had to decide out of choice and desire. rather than it being imposed by one persons intense longing for the other.
the road began to fade as sand particles began appearing. soon everything under our foot was sand. she held my forearm as she tried taking off her shoes. immediately her height reduced by a good couple of inches. "sand feels so good under the feet." she felt good everywhere or what. it was as if she was integrated with the universe. each and everything was hers. from the biggest to the smallest she was connected with it, part of it, comfortable with it. a mutual interdependence kind of feeling. for me who believed that complete independence from everything was bliss, this was a very perplexing feeling.
the waves appeared. perpetual moving water. coming to the shore, touching a part of the beach and returning back to the depths. bits of her hair had come loose and was flying around all over her face. she trying unsuccessfully to contain them behind her ear all the while talking about the smell of the sea and the loveliness of the dipping sun, occassionally going off to comment on the dishonesty of the local grocer or the tailor. i was getting used her banter. getting comfortable with it. wanting to be with it for more time if possible.
we decided to sit down, me offering her my hanky to place on the ground before sitting. all chivalrous i felt. and the sea agreed. the setting sun agreed. the wind agreed.
