the 'Fist' & the 'Pacifist'

Thursday, June 09, 2005

About Him...

Today morning seems another life.

Woke up in a hotel whose name I didn’t know. The two hour jeep ride into Bangalore, we didn’t exchange a word. No, there was one line. Sam pointing to the mineral water had said "Give me the bottle".

The plane was now hovering over Calcutta. She must be home from work. It must have been odd for her to be back to work after the weekend? As it will be for me, tomorrow.

Last night, we listened to music and got drunk. I felt glad, I wasn’t alone. The play list was hers, Joshua Tree and other stuff I didn’t even recognize. Very Sam. Eclectic and pretentious at times…but yet nice. Very Sam. I think I miss her.

We made love last night. Sam reached out to hold my hand, she didn’t say a word. She didn’t smoke cigarettes and didn’t ask me questions. Not like Sam. In the morning, there was no cloud of regret, no sense of an ending, just the underlying discomfort of a manic Monday and the realization that the spoken word was limited in expression.

It was November, the air was cool. But on the drive home from the airport it felt nice to have the window rolled down. The last few years were spent on the cusp of change. The ever present feeling that places, people and life are slowly metamorphosing into something. But many of those wheels have now done their revolutions. Life has changed.

U’s husband Indro has a website, its tacky with neon banners and unaligned text. But yet, it’s nice - in a fuzzy way. Over the last few years I have kept in touch with U, through Indro’s website. Pictures of them at a b-school party - clinking glasses and her lovely smile. A close up, a ring on her finger. Their wedding pics. She in a saree by the wall unit. Their first house. Their new car. Her cubicle in the bank. Yeah I have kept in touch with her. Its eight years since we last met.

They like two goldfish in a fishbowl. And I like an eye in the sky.

I bumped into Megs at a conference a couple of years back. She looked more wonderful, than when we dated. I invited her husband and her for a drink that evening. I got pretty drunk and got into a fracas with the waiter. The husband, an accountant didn’t drink. I like to believe that she might have thought about me, when she lay in her bed that night. Or maybe after screwing like rabbits, the couple bitched about me.

Ori and Mallika are expecting their first child early next year. Doktor is lecturing dumb first world kids at the University of – Rapid Springs or Clear Water or something. I have lost touch with Rahul, but half an hour on Yahoo or MSN, and I am sure I can scrounge a contact number.

And that leaves me, a bumpy Indian road, a German car and my own wedding to attend, about this time, this day next month.

Labels: Fiction