By a week that followed, we had became friends; the
kind that you smile at when you accidentally meet on the road. To tell you the
truth, I hated this popular guy deep down for the quirk he was. But then I chose
to be little civilized in the way I treat him.
And
also, when favorite band merges the connection, and favorite song makes its way
into human relationships, there is more than one reason to give it another
shot.
The golden hour memory still very strong in the
heart, and occasionally stretching my lips to a big happy curve, often
advocated for the person I share the memory with.
I convinced myself saying the guy can break into
jigs in the middle of the road, may be a warehouse of weirdness, but he is a
goddamn guy to explore within.
And well, I needed more motivation to resume writing.
So
why not get yourself a quirk character with a deep contemplative soul to write
upon?
So another day, I was out on an evening date with
myself, which I did ritually every day. I would come back from classes, grab a
book, read a few pages, the chunk of the time spent staring through the window
to the sunset outside. Then, when the sun had took away with itself almost all
the brightness of the day, and just before the streetlamps would start coming
out, I would get dressed and go out to the nearby tea shop.
I had a particular bench where I’d sit alone,
looking away from the crowd behind, and dissolving the noise by the songs in
the earphones.
I was little addicted to the view I got to see,
every evening.
There
was a ramshackle tea stall, mostly crowded by oldies; they would play vintage Hindi
songs, and only lit halogen lamps.
The magical aura it had mostly come up for show
after the moon came out.
The
moon, usually on its waning phase, would appear just about the tea stall,
crowded by stars.
I would often play Bhindeshi tara in my earphones and
gaze at the sky; smile to myself wondering if there is a second soul not
missing out this beauty.
Needless to say, the song would always remind me of
the quirky guy.
By
now, my subconscious, without my permission, had entangled his memory with my
favorite song.
So, when I was done with sky gazing, and two cups of
tea and more than two smokes, I started walking to explore the town I was new
into.
Marketplace is crowded, the other lanes mostly don’t
have lamps, shops are noisy; I was just deciding against going for a stroll and
taking myself back, when I saw him. This time standing in a cigarette shop, not
buying or smoking, but chatting with the shopkeeper; with that bright smile
throughout.
This time I went and tapped his shoulder.
He turned, the same smile directed towards me, “Hey!”
“Just
going around. Nothing much to do here after sundown, you see”,
I said, and God knows why, I was pleasantly surprised that I had bumped into
him.
Any
day, a quirk is a better company to go around with than going back home and
having no one to talk to.
“I
am thinking of going Kasahara. You want to come?”
He said while taking a phone call.
“Where
is it?” I was clueless about the place he was talking
about.
“It’s
a restaurant. Come, I’ll take you.” He got all worked up.
We started walking, and he started taking, from
Nietzsche to Lacan, from Philosophy to music. I was mostly listening, and
somewhere far behind my head, Bhindeshi tara kept playing in a loop.
We walked lazily, sometimes taking the long way,
through the halogen lit lanes, through the University campus, often bumping
into my classmates and seniors.
Surprisingly, he knew all of them.
All these months in Santiniketan, and to this day,
when people ask me what is the best thing about the place, I usually have
conjured up images of the evening campus in my head; mostly dark, and some
places brightly lit by yellow lights. Some places, the lights came through the
leaves and created patterns on the road.
The
lights made everything look like made of gold; gave a bright sepia tone to the
visuals the eyesight met up with.
Coming back to conversations, I started liking the
way he talked about the things he is passionate about; and I guess that is a
good way to start with, to revert my opinions about him the other way round.
