2. e

We sit there wordlessly smoking our cigarettes. I keep looking at the Expressway. India’s first Expressway. A party head’s dream. A government’s mission and a state’s pride. It joined the two capitals of the same state. Two divergent urban civilizations separated by a mere distance of one hundred and ninety five kilometers. One cultural and one economic. One disorganized, one crazy. One easygoing, one stringent. Like two contrasting siblings born astonishingly to a same mother. A thick line holding them together. Binding their bodies while preserving the individuality in their souls. It was a belt that held the two wheels of a machine together.
I looked at the western end of it, in the direction of my home. It dissolved in the dark horizon at the end of the curve. Like everything else, it disappeared after it. It must’ve dropped off the edge like the Greeks thought. Maybe they were right. If not in the geological sense, but surely in a sense of perception. Horizons did trap us. We only crossed them when we wanted. Till then it was the point where the land ended for us. And those who did, returned back to the lives marked within the horizon or kept yearning to do so. Dreaming of it, every moment they spend outside the horizon.

I had my home beyond the horizon. In the other city. The place where I was born and brought up. The place which built up my soul. The city which ran through my blood. The city across the sea. The city on an island. I didn’t go there much. I was happy here. Not because I loved this place. But it gave me a frameless world to live my life. This sovereign way to life was what kept me glued to the place. It was not that I didn’t want to go there. It was just that I didn’t preferred going much. Here I had my own life. It was imperfect in sane senses. But it was mine. I ruled it. I lived it.

This was the Expressway which had brought me to this place. And I know that this is the Expressway which will take me back home. It had shown me freedom. It had introduced me to independence. It had taught me to stand up for myself. And it had given me the license to behave the way I want. And when I had to be to myself, it seated me besides it. Endowing me with peace and solemnity to get back to my life in the arsehole of the world.

“Why did this happen?” Piyush spoke taking a puff. He had curled up his legs to his chest, like a villager sitting before a flame. Villager that he was. Villlager that he will be. Such moments take the villager out of him.

“It shouldn’t have” I reply smoking mine.
“”Why does this happen to me?...Why?”

This is the line I hate the most. It incenses me when someone utters this line. The line is a fucking epitome of self pity. Why did it happen to me? What do people want to prove with the line? That they are the only sad individuals on the back of this earth? That nobody is sad except them? What do they want to say? Bloody losers! After being used by billions and trillions of people around the world, the line now carries a profile.

Line: Why does this happen to me? / Why does this happen to me only?
Users: Every individual loosing an opportunity.
Purpose: Express sadness
Target: Men target women; Women target men and women
Success: 78%
Expected answer: Awwwww….don’t cry! Poor baby!
Inappropriate answer: It happens to everybody…all of us…

“It happens to everybody dude…all of us…” I said rather impartially.

He looks at me shocked.

“What is important is what we do in such situations…” I continue with same state of commenting.

A silence lingers between us for some moments. He seems unable to react. His silence speaks for him.

“What are you doing?” I break the silence with my question.
“Harshad is my friend…”
“Hmm...”
“A part of our brotherhood…”
“Yeah”
“His happiness….is my happiness…”
“I asked you what are you doing?” I stress on the word ‘you’ on loss of patience to his overtly expressive statements.
“Giving up” He replies proudly.

Sacrifice! Arsehole never loved her. I believe people who are ready to sacrifice in love, never are in love at any point of time. They just feel that they are in love and enjoy the pleasure of being in it. In the deprived society of ours, even this feeling gives them an upper hand over others who don’t fall in love predecidedly. It makes them feel special and they find the trip equally worthy of falling in love itself. The quick sacrifice from Piyush was doubting the validity of his feelings before me.

“Are you sure?” I ask him.
A long silence prevails. I wait or an answer. It doesn’t come for a long time. I wait more.
“Are you sure?” I ask him, utterly frustrated by his silence.

He again took a pause. A small one this time. Then he twists his face. And then he answers. Finally.

“No…”

Clever arse. He keeps a room for himself. After he had lost hope, cribbed over his fate, cried like sucker, decided to secrifice, he says he isn’t sure if he will let Harshad take her home as his wife. He does expect a miracle secretly within him. Bloody hope dies hard! I catch him with that line.

“When will you be?” I ask.
“My mind says No….but my heart says..” He begins.
“I asked when will you be sure?” I cut him off.
“Don’t know”
“Piyush….” I speak with a determination “As I said… What is important is what we do in such situations…And you don’t know what you have to do….And when you don’t know that….you suck!”
“I do suck…I know..” he begins another emotional mono act.

“Shut the fuck up” I shout on him “Know what you want to do…decide it fucker!...sooner the better..”
“But….”
“I will ask you this question once more….decide it till then…” I don’t let him speak. I strike my sentence on him like a threat and I leave from the rock.

Shaken to the core, Piyush starts following me hurriedly, to catch up with me.

I give him time. I buy some time. Not for him. But for myself. I have my plans. I won’t speak it out this time. Speaking out plans, spoils them for me. I am jinxed in that matter. I’ve realized this lately.