The Proposal

Mobile phones may have revolutionized the communication but the silly old me thinks that it also killed the anticipation (with bated breath and tongue hanging out) of a phone call on the landline which did not display the number form where you were being called. The dial-up phones, the tring tring (well there was only one ring tone for those black little beauties) and of course everyone didn’t own one!

In a bank branch, only the mighty two which were the Branch Manager and the Accountant had the privilege of having a phone on their desks. So every time someone had the gall to call one of us lesser mortals on the branch phones it counted for an event of sorts. And if the caller happened to be of the fairer sex, as the voice would suggest, it would be the most solemn moment of the day. Suddenly everyone would become dead serious, poker faced and look fiercely into the ledgers in front of them. It was a sure giveaway that nobody was minding their own business and all the pair of ears were squarely zeroed onto that little black thing which was attached to the right ear of the tall, dark and handsome (now turned into a fat, black and shrunk lay about) trainee. I would have swaggered into the room in ordinary circumstances but with the whole branch listening in it felt a little weird.

I was in Jammu. Across 1300 kms from Allahabad a voice crooned on the optic fibre!

Can you come to pick me up?

Pick you up? Sure but where and to where? Allahabad is a little far but okay, let me see…I’ll try…but I might just be able to swing it !! ( You seriously think there could have been a different response? )

Not Allahabad silly! Come to Delhi and then I want to go to Dalhousie. I haven’t seen my sister in ages. I want to go there!

We are bankers and every time we receive a loan proposal we demand a bunch of documents to assess the viability and then deliberate over them and finally give a yes or no decision which in those days was more often than not a NO. Please give me the benefit of doubt here. I was new to the Bank, the lack of documentation (read oral commands) and there wasn’t any real option of disagreement which finally made me come to a well thought of, reasonably assessed decision!! YES! Bloody hell, of course, I was going! Now all I had to do was convince my Branch Manager to grant me leave! So promptly I went to his office and killed one of my relatives and was out with a sanction in two minutes flat! God bless the soul of that fictitious relative who actually was never born and hence never died! Probably the followers of Osho stole my thoughts from the cosmic highway to draft an epitaph for their head Honcho!

The next step was to finalize the travel plans.

Day one: Jammu To Delhi, reach the next day

Next Day: Reach Delhi. Have a quick bath and a bite. Pick milady and back to Railway station. Board train for Pathankot

Next Day: Reach Pathankot. Catch a bus for Dalhousie

Stay for two days. Go back to Pathankot, catch a train for Delhi and split form there.

Now where women are involved and that too when it’s your girlfriend, do you seriously think your planning is worth a dime? Well, mine was but just to an extent.

Those were the days when you actually had to move your yet not inflated bottoms to a Railway station/booking office to get your reservations confirmed. Being in a Bank during those days had some advantages. The Govt agencies gave you some preference and well, all my tickets were booked.

I was staying with a few other trainees all of whom came to see me off at the Railway Station. On boarding all of them gave me that meaningful wink and handed over a quarter bottle which I learnt later was a magic mixture of Rum, Whiskey, and Gin to see me through the night. The smoker in me spent most of the waking hours next to the doors of the coach. So here I was, burning my lungs and competing with the engine in emitting smoke but with a song on my lips. “Aaj unse pehli mulakaat hogi” It wasn’t truthfully accurate to what was to happen but what the hell, it fitted right into the scene! The lover boy was riding a thousand-horse engine!

The train chugged into the horribly polluted Delhi morning the next day! I was to meet her after considerable time and so the first thing I did was to look for a washbasin on the platform and make myself presentable. I found one, brushed my teeth and shaved my miserable little beard. And then an auto ride to an apartment I had been directed to come to. Furtive lovers always meet at some friend's place but this time the friends were there too !! After a polite hug to the babe, a cheery hi to the unwanted friends I rushed in for a shower. Ten minutes later we gorged an ordinary lunch and another fifteen minutes later we were back at the Railway Station to catch the Jammu Mail!

Smokers luck perhaps but we got the two berths which are at the end of the coach. Top and bottom, so we could look into each other’s eyes. I even forgot to smoke! You know, AC coaches are no fun especially when you are in your mid-twenties not to mention that my financial position had eternally been sailing in the doldrums. And hence it had to be a 3 Tier sleeper, in which we were sitting on the same berth, hand in hand, the window open and the air gushing in. The day rushed past quickly and we woke up to the cacophony of Pathankot early in the morning and quickly boarded a bus for Dalhousie. Now there is this quaint little town called Dunera where the buses made a mandatory stop because Aam Pappar and Shikanjvi there is to die for. My girl was as usual quite chirpy but I had been travelling virtually non-stop for forty-eight hours and despite the bumpy and meandering hill road I soon fell asleep. I am still often reminded of that cardinal sin 33 years later !! Thou shalt never fall asleep when the ONE is talking to you!

Dalhousie at last! I checked into a hotel and she promptly trooped off to her sister’s school where she was teaching. We were to meet the next day so I had the entire evening to myself. I did the usual touristy stuff of walking the Mall at the end of which I bought myself two small hot dogs and a quarter of rum. We had been meeting off and on for about six years but always left the question of our prospective future together unanswered. In fact the last two times I had broached the topic but she nicely skirted the issue. I thought she isn’t ready yet so I didn’t press the matter. This time it would be different, I told myself. So, over the next three rums, six cigarettes, and two hot dogs I rehearsed how I was going to go about it. I even dreamt about it that night.

The next morning I quickly got ready, in more ways than one mind you and waited for the lady to arrive. She entered the room and I thought…go for the Kill man!

Hey look I wanted to say something…..

I was cut off in mid-sentence!

You know what a beautiful path it is to the school. You have to see it!

Yeah must be but I was saying…..

The first response was replayed!

Arrey, it’s bloody awesome. There are so many wild flowers there…whole bunches of them. Why can’t we have them in Allahabad? Can we ask someone for the seeds? You’ll help me naa? Ask some of your banker friends here…

I butted in!

The thing is that we have to decide…..

Stuppidd that’s what I am saying too. This is a trashy room you are staying in. Change the hotel immediately and we have to go to Mall Road right now because my sister is going to meet us there in half an hour.

There are more important things here than meeting your sister and please can you just …..

The temperature dropped by about ten degrees and she turned her pretty head towards me, stared to kill! “You don’t want to meet my sister?

I didn’t say that

Then what did you say?

Ummm, I was saying…..

What? What were you saying?

Errr, gulp, cough cough

Now wasn’t I saying don’t have too much of that Aam Pappar? And on top of that, you had cold lemonade! Totally careless you are! What am I going to do with you?

Ahhh, an opening at last!

How does it matter if you are not going to stay with me?

The head shoots up, the eyes immediately suspicious! Kya matlab?

The final thrust!!

Babes, I love you? Will you live with me?

Stupid, for that, we need to get married first!

Yay !!!!! That’s what I was trying to say!

So why didn’t you say so before? Itni der se faltoo ki baat kar rahe ho!

What? But you weren’t letting me speak! And never mind…for the record… will you marry me?

The doe eyes softened and she lit the room up with a million watts smile!

Yes Ba, I will !!!

What could I do? What else could I do except take her in my arms and forget the world for a second!!

We got married two years later!

Even now most of time she talks and I listen. Sometimes I don’t but it’s only because somehow my ears shut themselves, but my eyes rest their gaze on that animated visage. I suspect most of the times she doesn’t realize that. But man, I love her so!!