Friday 19 September 2008

suggest a title : mine - nothing

She always slept like a baby. Her legs curled up, head bent down, hair disheveled, fingers carelessly touching the palm and sometimes with her glasses on, which would be right up at her nose.
That's how he saw her, in the train to the big city, chasing his dreams where he was headed. She too was going to the big city, she said she knew why, never told him though. She was in the same berth, he wanted to ask her for some water, knowing that the next station was two-three hours away and the old couple would be too irritated if woken up. He looked at her, sleeping this way and could not help a faint smile on his cheeks. He turned back, about to leave, ask someone else waking up at this hour of the blank, cool night.
" Excuse me.You need something?", she was adjusting her glasses, on her elbows, clutching a novel of Marquez. That was their first night together.

One of those may nights when he was late to get back from work, still chasing dreams, not his anymore - he had bartered them and forgotten , he would find her asleep just the same way.
He would put his bag down, slip out of his shoes and go to the dining table and get the food kept for him. Unable to find the customary dal - his favorite, he would search here and there, in the kitchen, in front of TV or in the refrigerator he would come back to the living room. He would look at her, again, smile, again and turn back to resume his futile search. Hardly two paces and she would look up from the corner of her eye " You need something?"
"Yeah. Dal"
"Three times I had to heat it up, three times. It's kept in the microwave"
"Thanks. Go to the bedroom"
Once more. He would heat it up, he hated cold food. She would follow him to the kitchen and cut the salad for him and mix them just the way he liked and munch at the tiny ginger bits cut for him. She would watch her eat and few minutes later yell "Eat it, damn, how many times you have to mix the dal with the rice."

That night, again he was late. She was not in the livingroom. She was asleep in the bedroom, just the same way he saw her first. Some things never change, he thought and the faint smile came up his lips as effortlessly as tears of love and gratitude. For the first time, he did not turn back, he wanted to call her and tell her how much she meant to him. How, to find her carelessly asleep in his home justified everything - good, bad and everything in between.
He called her, once, twice, thrice, many times. He waited.
But she did not get up, with that light in her eye and ask " You need something?"

Now, in this small room, he tried to sleep like her. Curled his legs, looked at his fingers for a long time and tried to compare in vain. He needs nothing.