6. d

Expressway is different in the mornings. At night it is a sea of darkness. If there is moonlight to guide you, the mountains around it look like waves which rose high and froze themselves. Turning into the large creases on land that a mighty hand had forgotten to wipe out. The head light of the vehicle passing by lightened up the entire premise, and you could see the real face of the mountains, moving away the veil of darkness that covered them. Like an enticing face peeping out of a black cloak. During the day, these creases take up clear shapes. Mountains and hillocks painted in strokes of green and brown. And a few touch ups of black, for the rocks that peep out from the green and brown carpet.

The cars which run on the expressway at night are just two eyes of light, finding their way in darkness, followed by two red eyes on the back, keeping an eye on the rash followers. In the sunshine, they transform into colourful celestial bodies, blazing like shivering flames of a fireball.

At night, the breeze which blows over the expressway, chills youir bones. During the day time, the same breeze keeps you yearning for more. It a gush of soothing coolness that blows across the heated land. But on the rock under the huge mango tree, it is never so hot. The shade is as cool as the shadow of night clouds and the passing wind, which makes the leaves rattle like a tambourine, livens you up in an otherwise hot daylight. And chilled beer which slides down through your system, cooling every cell in your throat to your belly, makes the endeavour to reach the place worthwhile.

I take the first sip from the bottle in my hand. I gulp it down, and it goes down chilling my chest and settles in my belly. I can feel it going down my heated body.

“Tell me….what do you know about Shamita?” I ask him.

“She is a good girl….and…she is very beautiful…and…she is smart….and inteligent…and…”

We were amidst one of the counselling sessions which we had decided to conduct, so that Piyush could get some guidance on wooing Shamita.

***

“You have to help me now…” He said to me as I washed my hands.

“I know…” I replied plainly.

“Only you can help me…” He was about to say something further.

“I know…” I interrupted him coldly.

“Will you?” He inquired hesitantly.

“Yes…I will” I smiled as him and wiped my hands.

“Tell me everything…about her….and everything about girls….and about making them fall in love with you…and impressing them….and wooing them…everything…I want her in my life at any cost…” He said frantically.

“Yes…I will” The smile on my face didn’t fade out. It grew wise. Like the one that Krishna bears in his pictures.

“When?” He asked in excitement.

“Today afternoon onwards…” I replied patting his arm in assurance.

“Thank You Anay!!” He said hugging me tight.

***

The truth was, there was no such way in which one could woo someone. If that would have been the case, most hopeless of guys wouldn’t have got hottest of girls. It’s all a stroke of luck. Or more a psychological reaction to a pecularity of an ability in you, that rings the bell in the opposite person. Marriages are made in heaven. On earth, we only legalise them. What we get from them, joys or sorrows, is all our destiny. The most we can do is break them and try once more. Till our quest ends. At times it might never seem to end. That is the time to realise the supreme truth again. And that is ‘Marriages are made in heaven’. If someone is made for you, you won’t be able to deny their presence in your life, even amongst the countless other presences in it, including the significant ones. And if it is not to be so, each of your ceaseless attempts to rivet them to your life, fail miserably, taking you farther from the then considered soulmate of yours. This is the only way in which everything in the soulmate business can be depicted. Rest all are just words of void wisdom.

The only effort you have to take while hunting for the love of your life is not to take any effort. It will happen on its own. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t ever to happen.

But then, these words are of no use to me when it comes to Piyush. Because if he realised, understood and followed this truth, I would loose every bit of importance that I maintained in his life. Which clearly would lead to the deletion of my role from his life. And so would it mark the end of my purpose. That was clearly not the reason why I had stood up to help him in first place. I had to give him some gyaan in order to keep him glued to my fingers. And this counselling was the medium for it. Giving away the truth wasn’t wise. It would mean clear loss of faith in me. On the other hand, the benefit of not disclosing it was that, if at all Piyush lost faith in my guidance, I coul bring him back to me by suggesting a hundred false ideas, and blame the failure of the earlier ones on the circumstances. The truth would leave any place for me in his life. So I decided to begin a farce of counselling him, and continue it through the end.

Sometimes, a lie of relief, is worth a lot more than thousand painful truths.

I begin.

I take the first sip from the bottle in my hand. I gulp it down, and it goes down chilling my chest and settles in my belly. I can feel it going down my heated body.

“Tell me….what do you know about Shamita?” I ask him.


(Contd.)