A Decay of Time

     It was ten years since they had met. Ten years of separation. Ten years of longing. Ten years of resurfacing questions that meet their ends in a few more resurfacing questions. He didn’t know how he would react when he finally sees her, but he knew that that one moment would define the void of a decade.

It was one of the shadiest bars in the city that people say used to be a café many years ago. He was right there occupying the corner table wearing blue polo shirt and blue denims surrounded by drunks and losers only to be with her. Why they chose to meet there of all places was something only they could tell. He had reached there before time; he wanted to see how she looks when she is not looking at him. To kill time he kept shuffling between locking and unlocking his cellphone and looking at the door. Ironically, the moment she entered he was busy unlocking his cellphone. She stepped in with a 3 suitcases and 1 mini handbag wearing an orange kurta. She seemed like an Italian tourist looking for an Indian adventure, only she was not Italian and she was looking for anything but adventure. She still had a pretty face and the same beautiful smile, only there were wrinkles on her face, which added a sense of mystery to her already mysterious personality. Her radiant face almost resembled Meryl Streep of The Hours. Not surprisingly, she invited more than a few glances from the distinct crowd of the bar. His eyes glanced upon her and for a moment he felt like he had either frozen or melted, it was a distant yet familiar feeling for him and right in that moment he travelled back in time –ten years back.

She has a pretty face he thought to himself and wondered if asking her out would be a vain move. Pretty girls have boyfriends was the only norm of the city after all. But like most decisions in his life he let the moment decide, which is just the other way of saying that he did what he wanted. She was on her way back home from office and he followed her and started walking right beside her. And as she was about to wave for the cab, he asked her, “Have you ever been to a place where you are served only if they are little ‘twisted’?” She was awestruck by the place and asked, “What! What do you mean?” “It is a place where people are only allowed if they are crazy enough.” he said in a matter of fact tone. “How strange!” His initial move had worked, he had hit her with a reality that was so deviating that she completely forgot the fact that he was in fact asking her out. “I could take you there…that is if you want to” he said as if he is doing her a favour. “Are you sure you are not just screwing with me?” She asked him. He smiled, which seemed like the only apt reply to the rhetorical question she had just posed.

Two days later he took her out to a coffee joint that was as usual and predictable as an Irish pub without a liquor licence. She stepped in and looked at him, “So you were screwing with me?” “Only technically”, he cheekily replies. “What do you mean by technically?” “Well this is an pre-independence English café that now serves us Indians. Surely anyone who comes here is a little twisted.” he said with a broad smile. The comment was just about funny enough to bring a slight smirk on her face. And as they say, in friendship as in politics, humour can go a long way in making people forget the real agenda. 

They sat down on a corner table that was meant to serve four people, only the café didn’t have four people who wanted to be served. In a matter of minutes the waiter came to them with an elaborate menu and an eagerness of a kid. “What would you like to have sir…I mean madam?” She looked at the day’s special and asked, “Can you get me a potion of garlic breadsticks and a mayo dip to go with it?” The waiter with a hint of sympathy in his eyes looked at him and said, “I am sorry sir we don’t have garlic breadsticks, but we do have tea that people usually order when we don’t have garlic breadsticks.” She looked at him with a disgust that the British might have had felt if they ever returned to the café. “We would like to have two of it…thank you.” he ordered. “Would that be all?” the waiter dared ask. “That would be all.” she assured. She was not very good at displaying her emotions, all emotions other than disgust. She believed one must always display annoyance when one felt it. Jerks would never know that that they are jerks unless you showed them that they are in fact jerks, she would often say.

“So this is your idea of fun, haan?” she asked looking at him straight in the eye. “A writer that eats well is only half a writer.” he replied with a broader smile this time. “You are full of shit! I hope you know that.” she taunted. “My friends often tell me that, then they tell me that they love me still.” He said this and looked at her with an apparent bemusement. She understood what he was trying to infer, but then there is only so much one should infer on a first date she felt. Is it is a date was a notion she was still grappling with, but it was something she didn’t feel the need to clarify even to her self, the thought worried her a bit though.  

He was just ecstatic that he was with a girl as beautiful as her. This is all he needed to feel good; even the Bombay traffic couldn’t dampen his enthusiasm for a year at least. “Do you know that Mountbatten used to have tea here?” he said for the sake of getting the conversation started. “Really?” she enquired. “Yes Mountbatten came here all the time…especially during the time Nehru was doing his wife!” Great relationships often start with bad jokes. The waiter came back with the order – two cups of tea and a plate of complimentary khaari biscuits. They started sipping the tea and she said right after the first gulp,” Not bad.” He just smiled and with quaint satisfaction said,” Why don’t you dip khaari biscuit and see, it would all go to another level.” The look of annoyance that had disappeared from her face resurfaced. “So how does it feel to be a writer?” she asked. “Nothing great really, it sounds cool when I tell people what I do, but honestly I am not much of a writer.” he said. “Oh come on, surely you must be good at what you do for you to get paid for it.” she retorted. “Bad HR is why I get paid!” he replied nonchalantly. And they both broke into laughter. “I wish I could write…but then I wish I could fly too.” she said with a broad smile and raised her eyebrows. “Writing is much like flying…I suppose.” he said almost instinctively. But there was something in the way she looked at him back then, one could tell she had made the first presumption about him. What the presumption was, was something only she knew.

A good date is the one that ends in a second date. In that sense this one was quite desperate, she seemed non-committal, which only means one thing, she has a boyfriend. But she did agree to buy him pancakes, it seemed more like a pity date, he thought. But for him it was more like a wide ball outside the off stump and he wanted to go down the track and belt it for a boundary. So it was decided that they would meet some place, some day at convenient time. It simply meant that he would have to go through the ordeal of asking her out all over again.

Ten days passed by, the initial euphoria of having gotten to know her had now subsided and all he could think of how boring was he and all the things he shouldn’t have spoken with a girl like her. Capitalism, socialism, nihilism, truism all seemed fine but they should have never spoken about religion, he thought. He had to do something out of the blue, but something that would make him come across as someone who is matured - a thinking person, he concluded. The following day he went up to her desk and told her, “What the hell do you think of yourself…you arrogant brat!” She was dumbfounded by this sudden provocation thrown at her and without realising slapped him on his cheek. And in the spur of the moment she realised what she had done. “I am so so sorry…” she said “are you all right?” He knew she was right there where he wanted her,” “I would be much better if you apologised over pancakes!” he said rubbing his right cheek. He had an annoying presumptuous smirk on his face. She found it charming though.

Something about her had changed, ten years can change a lot of things one would say but it was something much deeper. It was perhaps the way she smiled. It was all the same, only it was not her. She saw him sitting at the corner seat playing with his cellphone. She didn’t ask him and went on and sat down to the seat opposite him. The moment had come, he was right there in front of her after a decade. He had thought of this moment many times before. In his imaginary situation he see himself shouting at her - ten years…where were you all this time…why didn’t you call…why didn’t you reply to my mails…and why after all this time have you come to meet me... But in reality when he saw her all he could manage was a bright helpless smile on his face. She smiled back. “Hi”, she reservedly said looking at the bar. He looked at her and said, “Do you know that Mountbatten used to come here to have tea here?” They both broke into sudden laughter to everyone’s bewilderment. It was the lie that broke the ice then, it was the lie that broke the ice now. It was the lie that was their truth and of everything between them. 

“So after all these years…we meet again.” he says in a measured tone. “After a decay!” she said. “Decay?” he wondered. “Oh! I meant decade.” she corrected herself. He smiled and asked, ”So what have you been up to?” “Nothing much, just here and there you know…just here and there.” she said. “Will I have to get you drunk?” he asked. “I have quit it...” she said and started laughing and then continued, “…but I can have wine!” He smiled and ordered a Chantilly Merlot for both of them. “You know speaking only when you are drunk is saying it all but not owning anything…it stands for lack of courage.” He said. She looked at him dismissively and looking into his eyes said, “So you think I need courage to speak with you?” He continued knowing truly well that what he would say would hurt her, “No…you are not afraid of saying things…only hearing them yourself.” “You don’t know me…you just thought you knew me…but there is nothing you know about me except for facts of course” she hurt him right back. But she could never disappoint him for some reason she was helpless in his company. And so she had a big gulp of wine, gasped and began to speak, “What do you want to know. I will tell you everything. I am still unmarried. I don’t have children. I don’t have a house. I have no savings. I have shifted jobs million times. And more cities than jobs. I am 39 years old and…and... Are you happy now?” She was always the type of person who could be shaken but not stirred. She seemed a bit stirred now.

Two of the most unlikeliest people had it seemed met their match. They hung out in bars, they hung out in concerts, they hung out on the streets with no way signs written over them. One could assume they were two birds in love but the fact was that they were just two lost souls looking to be free. And so their friendship blossomed into a relationship that can’t be defined. “Maybe you were my mother in the past life.” he remarked out of the blue one day in a cab while dropping her home. She looked at him in amusement wondering if it was a compliment or sarcasm on her growing age. “You know I am old!” she just said simply. This is one conversation he hated having with her. “Do you want me to reassure you, cause I can but really I don’t feel like doing that.” he said. She smiled, she knew what he meant by that and she nodded and said, Yes I would like it if you reassured me.” “You are not old you are just a very, very beautiful girl.” there was a distinct expression on his face while he said that, one that people have when they are out in malls looking at things they wish to own but cant afford. He dropped her home and hugged her for the first time. It was the first time he had touched her.

A lot of time had passed between the, but soon they were back to where they used to be. Amidst the gibberish and unexplained, they both poured their heart out like a glass of wine. He told her he was married and has a girl. He has a car. He has a house. He has a career. He had achieved his dream. And he told her he cried every night. “Ten years back I wanted it all and now I have it all, ironically what I want now is what I had ten years back.” He said almost inviting pity from her. But she could never pity him, she cared too much and so she gleefully smiled. That hurt him a bit. He was hoping for a reaction. He didn’t want her to be ecstatic or pleased. He wanted her to be upset. He wanted her to be very upset about the fact that he was happy in life.

Her smile and her awe cut through his heart, it was as if someone had smashed him in his face by sheer accident. It felt like he was still a quotient of amusement in her otherwise serious life – always important but never of any real consequence. “So you want me to lend you the money?” he said with a blank face. The smile on her face vanished completely. “Can you? she enquired. “Only if you tell me what do you need it for.” he said in a cold tone. I thought we had spoken about it…you shall not ask any questions and I shall not be expected to answer any of them.” she said. “I know what was decided…that you will get what you want.” he said it as if he was trying to infer something. She chose not to react. “You know we were never friends, you and I, if we were you would have come to me much before and wouldn’t think before telling me what was wrong with your life.” he said. “If we were friends you would have known what was wrong with my life and you wouldn’t have to ask.” she retorted as best as she could.  “All right can you at least tell me what happened that night, ten years back…the night I ceased to exist?”

Some relationships are about the future, some relationships are about the past. This one was the latter. They would meet for hours talking to each other. They would talk about childhood, about upbringing, about relationships, about regrets and music that is just not the same. However, what truly set their conversations apart was the fact that they both hated speaking the obvious, the mundane and about life. It had to be a point of view and not a descriptive. She would talk a lot, or so she felt but it was the one ‘unaccounted for’ she would never speak about. And it was this one pending conversation that would hurt him the most. Until one day she opened up, like a parachute in the sky during wartime.  

The one accounted for was a bastard was how she started describing him and those were the last words too. And he knew he could at best be a listener, never the topic in her life. Only a wartime contingency plan at best. He secretly wished she could hate him just as much some day as that would mean she loved him just as she loved him some day.

“You want the money for him don’t you?” he said mercilessly. “If you know, why do you ask…cant you leave me alone?” she said holding her tears back. “After ten years you can’t tell me to leave you alone, you said it that night and I left...I can’t leave you alone now…no” he said. “You always used to say never say no when you can say yes, what happened to that?” she asked like a kid. “I have changed!” he snapped back.

He placed the money, ten lakh rupees on the table and told her, “You owe me nothing, you don’t need to say anything.” Tears started trickling down her cheek and she looked at him and said,” I need it for him…I just need it...what part of it do you not understand?” “The one you don’t understand as well, I suppose.” he said hating himself for making her cry but he was only too careful not to show any outward emotion that she could latch on to. “He has a hole in his heart, I need to help him…I know he wasn’t there for me…I am angry for what my life has become… it could have been so much fairer…something I deserved after all I have been through…but life is not fair…all we can do is go with the flow and do what we must do…” it was like she was alone and talking to herself…I have tried to reason with myself…but I am helpless, some emotions cant be explained, they shouldn’t exist but they do…and you want to lock them but when you do…they only grow…more and more every day…and it has been 20 years now.” He looked straight into her eyes and asked with moist eyes, “And what about my heart?”

He placed the money on the table and left. She didn’t chase him. She just saw him leave as she did that night ten years back. She wanted to say something but it was too late. Again.

It was a peculiar night, the kinds that has a certain startle about them. These are the nights that you never forget. These are the nights you see a certain future. These are also the nights that you regret the morning later. He was expected to meet her at the seashore, she was strangely late and he was beginning to worry, which he always did for her. He started imagining her being there just to kill time. How things would be a decade later, he started to wonder if they will be in touch, will they meet, will they connect, will they be married, will they be married to each other, or will they be friends or two people who didn’t recognise each other except for their face. He was sure she was the one with the brighter future. Somehow he just couldn’t see her but happy. He imagined what it would be if he was a successful writer who was about to meet a pretty millionaire at the seashore exactly ten years later. How she would get off her Ferrari, wearing diamonds, looking like a dish and making him wait just like always. Then they jet off to an island, which he didn’t know existed. And there she would tell him that she wishes to make a movie out of one of his stories and he tells her that it would cost a lot. Perhaps a bit disappointed, she asks him, “How much?” and he would reply,” A dinner date in a shady bar?” And they both laugh. All of a sudden he snaps out of his magic realistic dream and sees her rush towards him. She looks at him and says, “I need to leave right away...I came to say goodbye…”

It felt as if someone had smashed him in his face by sheer accident. He didn’t know how he was supposed to react and before he could utter a word of disbelief she told him,” He needs me now…and that is all I can say…but I do wish to tell you…” he was enraged by the embarrassment of the moment, the turn of events, the twist of fate. Right at this moment he let his ego overpower him and left. He didn’t turn back. She just stood there hoping he would hear her completely at the very least. She didn’t chase him. She just saw him leave just as she said almost to herself, “But…I…”