Saturdays bring about ruminations, introspections, deep thoughts and the like.
Sundays? Sundays mostly just bring about the realization “Hell, Saturday was spent procrastinating and having fun. I still haven’t done _________” {insert long list of tasks here}.
She walks out alone into the darkness and wonders why she is alone. She’s not overly fond of people, but she does like company. It’s pitch dark and she stops her walk for a moment to look around. The water tower near stands out, stark white against the gloam.
A man behind almost bumps into her. Giving each other forced apologetic smiles, they move on about their ways, he to a waiting car and she to her parked one. Something has knocked her cheerfulness off-kilter and left her feeling lost. Looking around, she wonders what she is doing there. She cannot recall feeling so alone, so purposeless, being in a place far far away, under an uncaring sky where even the stars are unfamiliar. At that notion she pauses mid-thought and looks up. It can’t be that alien if she can still spot Orion, twinkling away cheerfully. She sits in her car and drives away in a cloud of pensiveness. A line repeatedly drums itself within her consciousness:
Wasted chances, a wasted life.
… the beautiful red-gold sunrise peeping over the edge of Shivajinagar; the only three weeks probably when i woke up with the sun.
… the fantastic pizzas one used to get on a small stall on Laxmi Road, abundantly sprinkled with crumbly cheese and hot off the oven.
… the total pampering done by the house-keeper at my company’s Shivaji nagar guesthouse for the three weeks i was there. Hot breakfast and full, maharashtrian dinners. And anything else, whenever i wanted it, delivered with a shy smile.
… the rush to leave office on Fridays, before the boss could search for me and the subsequent fight to get into a crowded bus headed for Mumbai.
… the planning of those weekend afternoons when i couldn’t be in Mumbai; fleeing the house at times of the expected power cut and spending those three hours in an air-conditioned cinema theatre. Have watched such random movies during those times.
… Watching Marathi serials (a no-way-i’d-watch-that situation at home) with the PG Aunty, and laughing with her at the stupidity shown.
… the ultimate relief felt when all the pleading and meeting HR people and asking the boss for a release worked and i was left free to go back to my dear Mumbai.
I left Pune almost two years ago, and inspite of the fact that i hated it while i was there, now, with fondness i remember.
So i read this sometime ago and thought “Well, it’s good she didn’t tag me coz i don’t really have any death-defying incidents to write about.”
Then today, some of us were discussing the terrible weather going on the past week – well, i am sure it’s not terrible for all..might be loved by – say penguins, but i digress. after the snow and ice and wind talk turned to mumbai rains and the flooding of 26th july 2005. Then i found myself thinking – Coming out of that incident alive and safe and in one piece was no mean feat. Though walking from seepz(andheri) to dadar may be accomplished easily by mumbai marathon-ers, its not easy when the way is filled with waist (and often chest) high water and there are no lights; when there are very few means and opportunities of communicating with your loved ones, or telling them you are safe and there are people with you, or of knowing how they are faring. When a distance that’s often travelled in less than 2 hrs takes you more than 6 to walk and nothing but the thought of home keeps you moving.
For months after that, i have cringed on seeing those areas of wadala,bandra and dharavi again which i had waded through. I have thanked God that a colleague, Anuj was with me throughout. I have also berated myself for not being alert enough to realise that moving out of office in such weather was a big boo-boo.
I can end the post with morals about strengths and perseverance et all, but the most important part of that experience was the point when i realised that no matter how long it took, i would reach home.
And totally funny.
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The occasion, many years in the past, was still mint-fresh in her memory.
The air was nervous with excitement and anticipation, and the promise of finally having grown up. Grown up enough, that is, to possess a real metallic compass box. Shiny orange and black, a graduation from the childish plastic boxes with two decks to separate stuff – stuff which only kids could be trusted not to handle correctly. Not so with the new compass box, where all the pieces nestled together comfortably. She opened the box carefully to find the all the geometry apparatus enclosed in a clean plastic cover. Two setsquares, a protractor and a 15 cm scale. The divider and compass lay separately. She carefully removed the cover from the geometry set and replaced the set in the box. Put in newly sharpened, woodsy smelling pencils. Without the eraser of course, those were only used by kids. She had a new eraser now which went into its own place at the right corner of the box. First day of its usage, she lovingly scratched her name onto the lid of the box with the shiny new divider. Little did she know then she was hastening the rust process of her box. Every day she cleaned the box, removing the eraser suds left behind, wiping the scale free of the pencil black and separating the quarrelsome duo of the compass and eraser or the over-loving duo of the scale and eraser.
Happy with this token of graduation, her school-life proceeded smoothly, with only minor trials and tribulations…
She put the object back in its place and smiled. Memories; all triggered by an old, plastic, cataracted protractor found when cleaning out an old cupboard.
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