Seven Days of Night - Part One

It is May, the hottest month of the year in Chennai. The heat from the sun seared the exposed skin. Nights offered little relief as the breeze was still warm from the day’s onslaught. People cozied up inside their houses, spending time on the television or the web, browsing through stuff absent-mindedly. Most of them were on Facebook or YouTube just checking out how the rest of the world went by. Well, we are a generation of internet tourists, aren’t we? The air-conditioners gave the much needed comfort and refuge from the high mercury outside. Very few lingered outside in the late hours of the night, unless they had a pressing reason to do so. I am one of them. I think rationale and reasoning are the first things to be compromised by a person who falls in love, encouraging them to do things they have never done before, no matter how foolish or risky it may be. I too am guilty of such an apparently irrational action when I decided today to sleep out of my car, just to be near the woman with whom I had deeply fallen in love.

I work for a multinational company at an executive position. As with most companies today, the pay is decent, the boss is not and the job is keeping my day occupied. What I love about my job though is that it gives me the satisfaction, or I think so, of doing something purposeful with my life. And more importantly, it keeps me away from the loneliness of my house, at least for most part of the day. I’ve been living on my own ever since my parents died a couple of years back. It was very hard at first to handle the trauma and loneliness. I didn’t know which was worse; losing my parents or having to live on my own. It was a lot of emotion to handle, even for a thirty-year old guy. Relatives called from time to time to inquire about my wellbeing, but that was it. The relationship with them never crossed its boundaries set by the modern fast-paced selfish lifestyle that all of us are so caught up in now.

Finally, one fine day a few months back, when I thought I had had enough of all the boredom, loneliness and the wallowing-in-self-pity extravaganza, I decided to boldly get married and happily suffer like every other married person I knew. Being the elder and the man of the house, in fact the only person in the house, I registered my profile in a matrimonial website to seek suitable alliances. I was not even sure about the kind of life partner I was looking for. I just wanted to get married so that I could make a home out of my house and have someone to talk to, share thoughts with, express myself and have a laugh together. Nothing happened for the first few days after registration. There were just a few profile visits, either ways. With a couple of profiles though, I did think that further dialogues could possibly happen. But that thought was cut short when the prospective alliance & family found out that I lived alone. And what made my profile look infinitely worse to some of them was that I was not willing to relocate to the US and get myself an NRI status. I thought to myself, if robots took over IT jobs, I am sure some of these girls would be willing to marry a robot just to relocate to the US, wouldn’t they?

As things continued in a state of limbo, one fateful Friday morning, I saw her profile. She called herself Sara, short for Saraswati. I was drawn to her profile immediately as there was this childish cuteness about her. She seemed to have a positive outlook to life that was so contagious. I felt I needed a person just like her in my life. So I sent her a message. Nothing happened for the next couple of days. As I contemplated on brazenly sending her another message, I received a reply from her. She said that she too had seen my profile and liked it, and in fact, she wanted to meet me in person for a chat. Her direct approach impressed me a lot. I responded with a simple thank you and asked her for a convenient time. We decided that we would meet over that weekend in Cafe Coffee Day near her residence in Adyar.

I was quite excited about meeting her and could hardly wait for the D-day. And to cut the long story short, thankfully on that day the meeting went well. I was at my best in presenting myself to her. First impressions were indeed the best ones. At the same time I was as earnest as possible when I gave her the details of my life. Her parents were based in Delhi; her father was a central government employee and her mother ran a NGO. She has been staying with her friends at a rented accommodation in Chennai for the last four years. Never once did she seem bothered by the fact that I lived all alone, without any elders in the house. In fact, I was expecting her to bring it up at some point of time during the conversation. But she never did. Finally I asked her about it myself. She smiled and asked if it bothered me that she lived all alone in Chennai with her friends. I was caught off-guard but was pleasantly surprised as well. Here was a woman who thought differently; who was not confined by the old school beliefs of the society. We finally said our goodbyes for the day after agreeing to meet again the following weekend. I made sure to find out, as discretely as possible of course, that she was not considering other alliances at the moment. I was secretly relieved that she was not. I did not want to look too desperate now.

From that day on, with every meeting we had, we were drawn closer to each other. I could feel the vibes. Pretty soon we were meeting each other every day. The beach near her house became our regular rendezvous point, where we enjoyed a walk by the waters and a snack at the roadside stall. She had already spoken with her parents over phone and told them about me, assuring them that I was a very nice person; honest and simple, the kind of life partner she was looking for. She had also told them that she wanted to proceed with the alliance. Her parents supported her decision and after a few phone conversations with me, decided that they would come over in July to meet me and my close relatives and hold formal talks. So we still had more than a month to go before any progress could happen. I was getting impatient. This whole thing was like running a marathon, the going was slow but I had to keep running. All those years I had spent living alone and all the personal tragedies had taught me tolerance and patience. But just when my ordeals were coming to an end, and when I was at the onset of a new life, I was growing impatient with all the waiting that was imposed upon me.

“Why did I have to wait? I liked her and she liked me. So why couldn’t all the other formal discussions happen faster so that we could get it over with and move on with the marriage?”, I often thought. But I knew that things didn’t work that way.

I knew I had no choice but to wait. In the meantime, I was quite happy with seeing Sara every day. Every evening I rushed to Adyar from office so that we could meet at our spot: the beach. We talked for hours, getting to know each other better. We had dinner together after which I dropped her home. And again, I was outside her residence early next morning so that we could go for a morning walk. She often wondered how I was able to be there early every morning. After the walk, I would drop her home and then head back to my house, shower and leave for work. And the routine continued in that way, every single day. I always kept my laptop, spare clothes and toiletries in the car. I was being prepared. The car was slowly turning into my second home. She was becoming my world. I did not want to be alone anymore. Or rather, I could not be alone anymore. After meeting her, I realised how empty my house was; how even the smallest sound echoed loudly and made me jump. I could not bear the silence anymore. It was unnerving and depressing.

Though I was happy seeing Sara every day, keeping up with the routine was having a physical and emotional toll on me. Driving back home at midnight was neither safe nor enjoyable as I was extremely tired and sleepy from the day’s work and hectic driving around. But, the real reason why I did not feel good about returning home every night was that it took me away from Sara. Driving back those twenty-odd kilometres to an empty house seemed like a Himalayan journey, both physically and emotionally.

That was when I decided to be a little adventurous and live out of my car, parked by the roads in Adyar. After all, I had never done something adventurous like this before; I’ve always lived a very protected normal life. Hell, I’d never gone on a trip on my own, with my friends. I realised that I was not even the frog in a well; I was a frog that lived in a wine glass. So one can understand that even registering in the matrimonial site all by myself was in itself an adventure for me.

The decision to live out of my car brings me to this present day, or rather night, in May, and to this very moment as I sit in my car thinking about the happenings of the last few days. It is around 1 am in the night. The entire road is dark and deserted. A couple of strays at both ends of the road howled into the night from time to time, giving me a scare with a surround sound effect. For the first time in the last few days, I thought that my empty house was a lot less scarier than the open road.

To be continued…