Of Bus, Blues and Beatles

It was dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of the Delhi airport. The early morning February air was pleasantly cold. I was travelling to Bangalore to attend a college friend’s wedding. It had been four years since we graduated from the same college. This wedding was also going to be a reunion of our batch mates. But what I didn’t know was that the reunion would begin much ahead of time; right in the queue in front of the airline counter.

I was almost sure it was she. Same height! Same long hair! Same complexion! Curiosity had my eyes glued to her. And then about 60 seconds later, when she turned, she proved me right. My ex-girlfriend stood two places ahead of me in the queue. We had never met after the college farewell.

“Hi Neera!”

“Hello Rahul, how are you?”  She said with a smile on her face which appeared quite a forced one.

“Great to see you…an absolute surprise.”

She just nodded and went to the queue for the ladies security check while I fumbled with my bag, having just been reprimanded by the CISF guard there, to put my mobile in the tray with the laptop. As soon as I had got off the foot stand after the frisking, I scrambled for my stuff quickly and stashed the same in the bag clumsily. I sure was in a hurry. By then she had found herself a place to sit and I was left standing and looking for a chance to sit near her. Why did I have such an urge to go to her, talk to her and sit by her side…will never know. After all it was she who had walked out on me, it was she who went off to Silicon Valley to pursue her dreams while I was left trying to prove myself…

As I waited, the man sitting next to Neera got up and I, like a Russian gymnast, did a perfect forward somersault and placed myself in the seat beating an old man who, too, was waiting for a place to sit. Like an idiot, I just smiled at the old man as he stepped back. Suddenly, the man sitting across started clapping and all the others joined the chorus…no word was uttered but I knew I had made a fool of myself. Neera, too, was embarrassed at my queer behavior and she apologetically offered her seat to the old man. Why did she do that? She’s at her act again of showing me down!

Soon found myself sitting by the window in the plane with an old couple by my side, memories of the summer of ’82 flooded my thoughts and Beatles sang for me that, " I once had a girl or should I say she once had me…"

My friend, JBS, and I were the rogues in the University Special DTC buses ragging the ‘fuchers’ even though we were one among them. That’s when we saw her for the first time.

"She was just seventeen, you know what I mean, the way she looked was way beyond compare…

Well she looked at me, and I, I could see, that before too long I'd fall in love with her."

Don’t know why, but both, JBS and I, didn’t feel like ragging her. Difficult to explain but such things often happened with us friends, falling instantaneously in love with the same girl. And as luck would have it, we got off at the same bus stop. She started walking with us, two loafers, following her ten steps behind, without her knowing, till we saw her getting into a house…Eureka! We now knew where she lived! After a couple of days, JBS found out that she was from the Physics Department in our college and he also got to know her name. He magnanimously declared that henceforth it shall be me and me alone who would try his luck with the Li’l Bong….

The girl then vanished for some days and this got me worried. Would cycle around her house often in vain for a glimpse…completely like a Roadside Romeo, you may say. Then suddenly one day I saw her in the morning 7.25 U Special. So for the next few years, even though I never had a class before 10am, I would do anything to be on the 7.25 bus….often missing my breakfast and at times even giving a miss to a shower in blistering Delhi heat.

Don’t remember when I started talking to her but my routine was set. I would everyday rush for the morning U Special and keep a seat for Neera. On days that she would not come, I would even get off at the next bus stop and try taking the next U Special….just in case she was there. By now she was all over my thoughts, my dreams. Every night, before going to bed, I would rehearse lines I wanted to tell her and by next morning, I would chicken out and just say inane things here and there.

That year my friends had organized a New Year Party at Chanakya Puri and I took courage to ask her to go out for the evening with me.

“Come home”, she said, “and speak to Ma about it. If she says yes, then we’ll go.”  

I was completely petrified. How could I just go to meet her mother? What would I have said, “Hi I’ve come to take your girl to a party?”  The mother would have surely shown me the door for such audacity.

“Why do I have to take your mom’s permission for a party?”  

 “You know my family background. My father no longer lives with us and mom is everything to us. We wouldn’t dare do anything without her knowing. That’s the least we can do for all she’s been doing for us.”

I didn’t go to the party that year. Just stayed back at home watching the Doordarshan program with my family but my thoughts were all with her. How wonderful it would have been with her dancing by my side…

Sometime later, I asked her out for a movie. Her answer this time was again the same… “Come home, speak to mom and then I can go out with you.” And so it was with us…just meeting for sometime in the morning bus, talking a while of anything but love. Don’t know how the three years went by. She kept up with her good scores, planned and prepared to go to the US for higher studies; I kept scoring goals for the college football team, barely crossing over to the next year. 

Was she my girlfriend at all? I never said it to her. She never said a word like that to me and yet we often enjoyed each other’s company. But deep in my heart I knew she meant everything to me. I would have done anything for her…completely and madly…

"If there’s anything that you want, if there’s anything I could do,

Just call on me and I’ll send it along with love from me to you…"

It was then that I took to pursuing my Civil Services Exams with seriousness…I wanted to be someone in life....someone who could knock on the front door of her house with confidence, with head and shoulder held high, speak to her mom… “May I?” To which she would have said with pride, “Yes, You May.”

Then came the day of our college farewell. Neera came in a flowery dress. She looked just unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. As the music began to play, I walked across to where she was sitting to ask her for a dance. She just shook her head in denial. I couldn’t understand it, so asked again. She said she wanted to talk to me….”Great, let’s take a walk to the college canteen across the street”. I could not believe my luck…she was with me alone, no crowded bus, no eyes watching us, no wagging tongues, just her and me all by ourselves as we sat down with ‘nimbu paani’ in our hands.  She opened her purse and handed me a letter that I opened and read… she had got admission to one of the best universities in the US and would be going off in August. She said nothing but I could see her eyes going soft and watery. Like a fool I shouted, “Wow! This calls for a party.” I, too, was acting strong before her and started talking about her travel plans. Not a word of sorrow or regret did I offer even though deep within I was a broken soul.

"Guess I’m gonna be sad, I think it’s today; the girl that’s driving me mad, is going away…"

 I wish I had the courage to just tell her, “Don’t go”, how I wish I could tell her how I felt for her at least once before she left, how I wish I could hold her hands and say all I wanted, all that had been lying within for years together….alas a coward is a coward forever!

Between the time of the final exams getting over in June and her flying out in August, I tried calling her a number of times. Many a time her elder sister would pick up the phone and I would just put the receiver down. There were other times when it just went on ringing…

I joined the Rau’s IAS Classes and started getting serious about the exams. While preparing for the Civil Services, I got through the Bank Probationary Officers’ Examination, and jumped at it immediately. It was training for me at another city from where I wrote a couple of letters to Neera. Don’t know if she got any of them. I waited for her reply which never came.

"Wait, wait Mister Postman, Mister Postman look and see
Is there a letter in your bag for me, I been waiting a long long time"

I never gave up hope….I even went to her house once hoping to knock on the door but then came to know she had moved out of the place and no one knew her new address. Wish we had FB and mobiles in the late eighties. We could have kept in touch like love aaj kal.

As the plane taxied down Bangalore Airport, I looked forward to the evening when my dear friend JBS would be marrying his girlfriend of many years.  I was also looking forward to many of our batchmates joining us for the night. “Will you join us tonight at the wedding, Neera,” I, finally, asked her expecting she would again tell me to get her Mom’s permission. “No, I am here on work and will be going to my office now and fly out late in the evening”. I didn’t have the heart to argue with her. She went off in her office car while I took a cab to Hotel Mayflower. Sad and depressed I was sulking in bed when the telephone rang…it was Neera, “I could see you this evening at 5pm at the India Coffee House on MG Road.”

 “Yeah, surely I’ll be there.”

Yippee!! She’s agreed to see me alone…I still felt a joy like never before…how long it had taken us to meet beyond the U Special and the farewell day. Freshened up, sprayed my exotic deo in abundance and went to the coffee shop nearly an hour early…how could I be late today. I took a corner table and  sipped two filter coffees ,waiting for her, as my eyes stayed glued to the door…waiting impatiently. At about 5.10 pm Neera walked in. She was wearing a nice maroon silk saree…how elegant she looked. “I am starved”, she said. I ordered for two plates of idli-sambar and coffee. She then started talking, asked me about my work and people at home. And then without my asking or prompting she spoke softly about her life which left me numb.

“I never went to the US. My mother was detected with leukemia when the final exams were on. Jayshree, my elder sister, finished her graduation in medicine and went to the US instead. Studying medicine there is so expensive and with Ma’s failing health and expensive treatment, we had to take a call between her and me. We felt Jayshree was a better bet for an opportunity to study overseas. I have been at home all these years. My routine is the same almost on all the days. Get up early in the morning, give Ma her medicines, make breakfast, help her take a bath…till she goes off to sleep, my world revolves around her… days and nights are all the same. The only difference is when she actually feels sick and has to be rushed to the hospital. Her health is going from bad to worse and can only pray that she has a relatively peaceful end soon. Can’t see her in pain on days she undergoes chemotherapy.”

“I did get your letters but never answered back. What could I have written to you? I was really happy for you when you got your job in SBI.  Sitting at home, got some time so did my computer designing course and now do some odd assignments once in a while. I had come here today on a project from CISCO. It just keeps me ticking….have a full time nurse at home for Ma on such days.”

Why didn’t she tell me all this before? Why didn’t she call for me? I would have surely helped her in these difficult times. One call was all I needed. 

I felt like taking her in my arms, putting her head against my shoulder. I wanted to shout, “Let me take your burden, Girl.” But as usual held myself back… Just sat with her for some time and when her cab arrived to take her to the airport, I, too, sat down beside her. Didn’t seek any permission nor did she say no. All through the journey, we just kept quiet, looked at each other once in a while, possibly both wanted to say many a thing to the other but silence won the day. As the cab came to a halt, she was about to get down, she put forth her hand to say good bye and I felt the urge to keep holding her hand, not to let her go, say to her please, please don’t go…

"I don't know why you say "Goodbye", I say "Hello, hello, hello".

As Neera walked away, the cab turned around, I took out the engagement ring from my pocket and bravely wore it again remembering the immortal Beatles’ lines... 

"Mother Mary Whispering Words of Wisdom…Let it be…And when the broken hearted people, living in the world agree, there will be an answer, Oh, Let it be!"

SS

PS. The first two paras in bold and italics were given by an author in Write India campaign of TOI. This story was woven around it, sent but missed making the cut.