There was
nothing to glorify the messy Mumbai weather. It had rained for a negligible
twenty minutes in the pre – evening hour just to annoy the sweaty locals.
Traffic still confused whether to stay or move, constantly switching their legs
between the clutch and the brakes. Midst the chaos, across the street, stood a
shattered Pan Shop serving the right intoxication to these restless bastards.
He watched
them leaning against the shattered wall of the shop, one by one, buying tobacco
to risla, just to walk across the
broken lane, only to roll a joint and get lost in their own sorrow. Scribing
layers within layers, trying to create a story of their own, lost in
translation, simplifying their complications and to forget in intoxication.
He stamped
the bud of his second cigarette and was about to leave when he noticed her a
couple of yards away, resting against a tree. She pulled out a Classic Milds packet from her back
pocket of her shorts and took a cigarette out with her lips, directly. Call it
the stars or her drenched lighter,
even after successive attempts; she failed to light her smoke.
He walked
towards her and elegantly offered her the spirit from his polished, wolf
printed, matte finished Zippo. She stared at him skeptically, deciding in her
calculative mind whether to accept his offer or not, she did. He picked out his
third smoke and lighted it with the same spirit.
‘You think
it is going to rain?’ he asked.
She looked
at him, confused. But she didn't reply. His eyes were still fixed on hers. She couldn't take that foolish awkwardness.
‘Sorry?
What?’ she replied.
‘Rain, you
think it is going to rain?’ he repeated.
‘No. May be… I don’t know.’
And she got
back to her cigarette. Twenty five seconds of Napoleon Dynamite silence led to another
attempt of vague interaction with her.
‘I think… I
think it is going to rain,’ he stammered, confidently.
She looked
at him with a half-baked smile and returned back to her smoke. Again. Napoleon
Dynamite silence. Again. This was a clear indication to him and he understood
that she required her space. She stubbed her almost dead cigarette against the
tree and started to leave.
‘Thank you’,
she said. It was loud enough for him to listen yet very soft for him to
comprehend.
He looked at
her walk away, hoping she would look back. She didn't.
The not so
glorious day ended just to give way to another not so glorious day. The only
thing that was different today was that it hadn't rained.
He stood
there, against the wall having his regular smoke.
‘Can I
borrow your Zippo?’ she asked.
Glorious
Day.
