THE FAREWELL

Her heels clicked on the damp cobblestones as she hurried to reach the book store. It was only eleven in the morning, but the sky was already gray. Rain drops scattered with reluctant softness on the jackets of the pedestrians. Cumbersome journey, they must’ve have thought before they started. Like she had thought, before she had stepped out.

Was she really comparing herself to stubborn drops of rain? Is this what they called mid-life crisis? She; a very successful columnist of the bold metropolitan weekly “The Sensuous Woman”, was heading towards that point in life, which everybody avoided. Her pace quickened of its own accord and her angry footsteps kicked at the cold and invisible wind around them.

She had spent the past six years writing about how every woman could be stellar if she wanted to. In bed and otherwise. She had written about how ‘attractive’ was just a preconceived notion, subject to change at the drop of a hat. Yet, as she stood and eyed her thirty three year old face in the mirror, she had failed to convince herself that she was in any way ‘attractive.’

A man who had just stepped out of the bakery looked at her and smiled. He was not unattractive. She returned his smile and quickened her step. He wasn’t following her. He was headed in the other direction.

Bookstores were forever inviting her to a reading of her very own column. “Its good publicity!” her editor had insisted. And so she had attended courses on voice modulation and agreed to her first ever book reading. The bookstore was filled with women who had read her column and had come to check whether the author of the scintillating “Viva Secrets” actually merited their admiration. By the time she had finished reading, the three hundred female faces were radiant. Like she had just helped them achieve the perfect orgasmic climax. Maybe she had. She would always write about how voice and tone were imperative for the perfect pleasure.

Laughter resonated from somewhere within the café. She so wanted to pause for some coffee herself. But she was running late for the reading. You should never keep an expecting audience waiting, they begin to lose faith in your goodness. Just another block to go and she would be at ‘Pages.’

Her readings had become so popular that bookstores now sold passes to women to attend those. Posters were put up a week before the event. Maybe the success had gotten to her head and maybe her work had really lost its touch. But she didn’t want that rubbed in her face by her editor. She was being fired from her job. Someone new with a fresh perspective was being recruited. Yes, the editor’s niece definitely had a fresh perspective.

As she neared the bookstore, the rain began to fall harder, urging her to step inside quickly. She was greeted warmly by the store staff and handed a warm cup of coffee. She had five minutes before her reading commenced. All night she had thought about turning this reading into her farewell speech. Should she be sweet and nice? No, she decided as she downed the coffee. “Viva Secrets” was about the secretive woman, the one which she keeps hidden from the world at large. She would do justice to her column, by revealing her darkest secret. That would be her true farewell.

“Hi!,” she said into the mike as she took her place behind the pedestal. “I am Mag Stewart, 36 years old and a virgin. I have never had a single boyfriend and I have never been kissed. “Viva Secrets” is about me. About everything I ever wanted to be. It is not about being you. It is about being a woman…”

Mom and Friends

Rather mom and ‘her’ friends! My mom has a very few friends, her meager social structure does not extend beyond the confines of this country. Language problem, you see. She is not very comfortable conversing in anything but good old Hindi and if you can’t trade gossip, then you can be friends. English comes as a close second, but talking in English qualifies as a compromise.

Anyways, so it is very rare for me to be present at any of her social gatherings. I hate traveling. My unwilling mind, further instructs my body to not take those ten huge steps from the bedroom to the living room. So I guiltily stay locked in my room and tap away on the laptop. The only thing which will entice me to embark on this arduous journey, is perhaps the presence of a good-looking guy, who does not look like the aunty’s son (which he is) and is definitely bound to break my heart. The masochist in me…. Really!

Such an event, is like finding a lice on a bald man’s head. Could happen, only by accident. And accidents do happen. So when I walked in home, one breezy evening, I see this handsome gentleman, sipping tea from my mom’s favourite China set and politely indulging her and her friend, with his breath-taking smile. My mom having noticed me, smiled and waved me in for introductions.

My heart is thumping so hard, that I am afraid I am going to wake up my sleeping dogs and send them into a barking frenzy. I manage to remain Ms Super Cool with the right amount of attitude and seat myself on the settee opposite his. I have just patted myself on the back for handling myself so well, when the aunty says,

“We were just telling Chotu, what a cute little kid you were.”

I was? I already sensed my smile faltering

“Remember that time when you were three and we had gone to Shashi’s wedding? You peed on poor Shashi’s wedding Sharara! Ha ha ha ha….!” She laughed remembering the incident which had probably disgusted the bride then, scared the three year old me into peeing some more and mortified the current me into silence.

Why were they discussing my most embarrassing moments anyway? I could sense the oh-so-cute ‘chotu’ imagining me standing on the frills of a red wedding sharara, peeing in my pants. I felt as elated as a squirrel caught stealing a nut. The difference is, that the squirrel runs away with the nut, while I just wanted to run and hide into the hole, without the nut.

“ and…” My mom was saying, “Chotu was there too. He was just seven then. But he remembers it too! Ha ha ha ha…”

Even Chotu’s smile had broadened to accommodate an almost laugh. Of course Chotu would remember! Even he did not, he would darn well picture it now and remember ‘that’ picture for the rest of his life.

Seriously!!! Mom and her friends and well, their good-looking sons!!!

Window Shopping

I went window-shopping.

I shopped for everything, but for those items in the window.

It was not my fault! I was in very encouraging company. Every time I ‘ooohed’ the smart brown bag, stocked strategically on the glass shelf, my companion nodded very understandingly.

“Leather,” she said reaching out to caress the rich brown texture. “Italian leather!” she admired.

My appreciation glinted in the greedy sheen of my eyes. Brown Italian leather, is like dark brown chocolate for the depressed mind. It works wonders!

“Pretty!” I said. The most painful understatement.

“It would hurt, wouldn’t it?” she asked looking at me and drinking in my painful expression.

“What would?” I asked, so completely baffled.

“To see someone else clutching this beauty and trotting around!” she said turning to look at the bag.

For a moment I actually picturized the situation she had so briefly described. The pain was so unbearable that five minutes later I was signing on the credit card slip spewed out by those maniacal machines at the cashier.

I walked out with a feeling of pride. I walked out poorer than I had thought I would be. I walked out with my companion who had led me to financial ruins without an agenda to do so. My companion hadn’t picked up a bag.

Brown Italian leather bags!