Akshay Pawar

Drama

5.0  

Akshay Pawar

Drama

The Long Small Talks

The Long Small Talks

6 mins
210


A tiresome day it was at the office. What else can you expect on a Monday if you are working 6 days a week!!


The crowd was reflecting the madness about reaching ones' shelter to have some warm supper and bread.


Two steps and a drift from left, Three steps and a dash from right. It was like swimming against the flow to reach the top. The station seemed like a zombie apocalypse being broken apart and everyone's rushing to save their loved ones except me. Likewise, I try to see expressions during such time. Happiness, Sadness, Stress blah blah blah and other such emotions were like a desert for my deserted soul.


One such peculiarity of such crowd is you get to see the true beauty of people. The makeup and the gloss and the pomp just vanishes of with the drops of salty sweat coming through a hairline and then sliding from the left cheek covering the entire face and then ending on the chin. The darkened ones like me seem to be immune to these sweaty days in such a country with humid climate. Gazing those faces like I gaze at my stupid laptop during AGMs, I was deliberately trying to make my way ahead avoiding unintentional touches to other gender.


As a matter of fact, I tried to avoid but someone or the other always tried to brisk me by couple of inches regardless of the efforts I put in to avert such crisis. I was continuing my long march ‘shoe to shoe’ on the bridge filled with Sapiens everywhere, that was the very moment where my pupils dilated and my mainframe started working abruptly. A very familiar face it was, moving in the opposite direction towards the platform. It is been proved by Modern Science that light travels faster than sound in any medium, I too, changed the line in a split second and was analyzing every movement with a close eye to verify it is the same person or not, else the efforts would go waste. The force required to climb the bridge felt inverted as it took very energy to climb down, being dumb and numb, following someone whom even you are not sure is the same person or not.


The slope ended in a matter of seconds, I was curious and anxious at the same time. I could feel the blood rushing in my veins, my heart pumping blood violently as if though I had an Adrenaline rush, palms turned sweaty, the Goosebumps and the shivering’s bought together a feeling of nervousness which sent down chills throughout the spine. Relentlessly I gathered all the courage, yes the left over courage I had in a nasty daily routine of work, I called the person by her name and to my surprise she turned back. I could sense the same awkwardness and embarrassment in her eyes, may be more than me in terms of quantity. Yes, she was the one who was a long one, unfortunately, to be seen after a long time. Her eyes were glaring, a smirk on her face slowly took my attention to the ritualistic thread of Managalsutra* in her neck which is tied during marriages by the Groom to his Bride. The glimpse of the thread made my brain secrete more Adrenaline and Dopamine at the same time. It was a mixed feeling, happiness for seeing her after a long time and embarrassment and guilt of seeing her post marriage. I haven’t mentioned the feeling of sadness, as I do feel sad sometimes but not at that moment when I saw her.


The same old question of “How are you” made its way to my ears from her mouth. I replied “good”. I so wanted to tell her that I missed her each and every moment for the lost time. There were many things going in mind at that time; is she comfortable in talking with me, is she getting late for her home; is she afraid of me saying something to her. But she surprised me by saying how come I was there at the station, I gave a stupid answer about work. The measure of anxiety rose up to an alarming level for both of us. To my surprise, she complimented me that I was looking good to which I sarcastically replied that I always look good. The reply was enough for both of us to take us back to the past where we belonged.


But noticing the discomfort, we just smiled. I don’t know about hers’ but mine was a fake one. Our chit chats from the past were all humming in my mind. It was a sick virtual reality I was experiencing on a crowded evening, with a numbed soul, to mention. She asked about my whereabouts and family, I asked about her job, her husband, her in-laws, her post marital life which were slowly drifting us more apart. The communication was clueless that we were not even facing each other later, my eyes were glaring the red digits on the train indicator whereas hers were staring at the tracks. Both wanted the conversation to end but no one wanted to initiate the end. We waited for the train like we used to do in the sunny days of the past. The time stopped as if though it wanted us to feel the sadness in the dry wind, the mind was overcooked by all this.


The entire conversation lasted roughly 7 minutes, but boy it felt like 7 hours into a never ending void, consuming your sanity piece by piece, decaying the flesh and bone within you and turning you into a mere piece of dust. The train came, she took a last glimpse at me and said in a deep voice that I should get married sooner, to which I replied no in a more lower note. She was puzzled but the crowd took her away from the place where we used to meet when we were blooming back into the train which was bound to her home. The same place, where we laughed, we cried, we shared, we cared and now the same place where we parted and met again but differently. I stood for a moment for the train to pass by. I used to do the same thing, seeing her disappear in the aurelius horizon, slowly disappearing in the twilight.


She used to walk ahead and turn back to see whether I am still standing there. The smile, I remembered it that day. She didn’t turn back and went ahead with the crowd. All I could remember now is her face. Probably she was always right, she was always right, I always saw her in my memories, not in a future with her and now here, at this very busy station, I was feeling her in my memories slowly taking off, never turning back to see me. The moment the train departed, I quickly tried to call Ballu, but regardless of her tight study schedule, she was not able to pull it at the right moment. The next number was of J, who was shocked to hear the entire conversation.


I explained to him my state of mind while talking with her and he was calming me down. Ballu did the same thing later that evening when I told her what happened at that tangled moment. I knew in my mind that I have lost my sleep and also thought about her losing her sleep that night beside her husband. Before sleeping, I saw my watch again, just to be shocked to know that it stood still at the very moment we met, it was 7:15 PM. I have now changed my timings to avoid such Long Small talks, but deep down I still hope to see her someday knowing she won’t turn back again.


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