3. k

“Harshad and Shamita!”

The names shake me a bit too. But I am not Piyush to crash over conclusions on minimal information. In that case I would have jumped back in surprise and wondered how Shamita could have shifted her loyalties on such a rapid pace, after having a ‘sleep fest’ for four days with the ‘Bastard’.

“Where?” I begin my investigation.
“At the Xerox centre….”

Xerox for world’s information is the name Indians have given for Photocopy machine. Nobody knows how it adopted this name. But it has been decades since it has been living with the name. Even shops have hoardings with the names as Xerox centres. The phenomenon occurred when photocopy machines released by Canon were called Canon Xerox. That was the final step in conforming the name Xerox for the machine. Later on there were Colour Xerox and Xerox Photos too. Along the time, Xerox are cheaply available and 93% of India’s educational growth is dependent on the presence of Xerox Centres near the colleges and schools. Name any author and I’d bet that his work has for sure encountered the scanning light of a ‘Xerox’ machine.

“Must’ve gone for notes…”
“People who go for notes don’t eat ice creams together…” Piysuh snapped as if I had pricked his heart with a sharp needle.

“Were they having an ice cream?”
“Yeah…and that bastard bought her one”

I used to be similarly jealous when I was in school and had newly discovered dark hair over my upper lip and pimples on my cheek. Over the years I had learnt to shave those hairs and pimples disappeared on their own, Piyush’s romantics were still stuck in his pimple days.

“Hmmm…” I just hummed.

We sat silent for some time. He, caressing his baseless heartache. And me, fondling mine.

The turmoil churned inside me continually. I wanted to choose the grief of loosing Aparna. But something held me back. It was revenge. It stood like a guard between me and Aparna’s grief. I had to satiate him to reach the grief inside. My ego, in an unrealised form had engulfed the love in me. And the only way to rescue my love was to overcome the ego. And the only way to overcome it was revenge.

“Hari Patti maarega??” I ask him to bring him out of his cocoon of self dismay.
“Haan” he agrees.
“Chal…”

I go to my sack. Put my hand in one of its side pockets. I pull out a packet made out of newspaper. I open it. I pick two cigarettes and empty them. I take the leaves in the packet in my hand and crush them with my thumb on my centre of my palm. I crush them into a neat powder. I separate the seeds. I fill the crushed dust in the cigarettes.

“Here or outside?” I ask him.

“Outside” he says.

(Contd.)

3. j

It is a dilemma. There are two strong emotions reigning your thoughts. And you don’t exactly know which one to subscribe to.

On one side you have the pain of loosing your love every moment. And on the other side you have a revenge ablaze inside you. And you stand holding these two emotions laterally. Like the symmetrical wings of a butterfly. Occupying equal parts of your contemplation. Choice of one neglects the other. You tend to loose your balance around hundred times a day making a choice. You try to correlate them to draw solitary solution for both. But they expand in different directions. And you run directionless to contain them.

Your sensations heighten. You can get highly reactive. Even on a snap of a finger. And it’s a phase when you could display any outburst of emotion any number of times.
Piyush enters the room depressed. Considering his emotive latent, it is an obvious reaction to some inconsequential incidence. Based more on assumptions than on reality.

“Welcome!!....cigarette?” I held out the cigarette in my hand before him.

He refused it. I didn’t force him. He didn’t demand again. I would’ve loved to say ‘fuck yourself’. His high power melodrama puts me off somehow. Each time he wears this morose expression, he assures me that a long verbal assault in on its way. The one against which I would he defenceless. And the only solution to counter it is by using the primitive method of defence. Attack.

“What happened?” My aggravation condensed into a question.
“Nothing!”
‘Then why are you sad shitpiece?!’ I felt like shouting on his face. But peace is a virtue.

“Then why are you sad dude” I say peacefully.
“I saw them together” He replies with pain. A pain of a lifetime for him. A pain of a teenager for me.

“Who?” I ask.

He sits on the bed pulling his legs close to his chest. A clear sign of prevailing gloom. I walk over and sit besides him. I give him a cigarette.

“Tell me…whom…”

He breathes in deep. Exhales. Then rubs his palms over his face. He tires me well with his damned built up. He speaks out…

(Contd.)