Of A-Table-For-One

He had been asked to manage the reception counter for the day. Sitting lazily at the plywood desk, he answered the calls from excited, impatient people, asking for table reservations and the special menu for the night. He hated the task. He was better off serving customers in his oversized T-shirt and his brother’s baseball cap. Somehow, the tightly fitted blue shirt with its crisp collars and intricately tailored black pants made him feel suffocated and out of place.

The evening was setting in and the buzz of crowds could be heard outside.

Pulling up his plastered smile, he greeted the first people who entered – an elderly couple with greying hair and wrinkled smiles. They walked to his desk and peered at the laminated sheet of paper displaying the reservation list. Then, the woman smiled and pointed at the sheet to draw his attention.

“This way, ma’am,” he replied with a polite smile, pushing open the huge oak doors to walk into the dimly lit room with its huge chandeliers and slow music. The forks and plates had been neatly arranged over the red chequered table clothes.

Walking out from the room to his desk, he felt the transition of the aromas. The other room had been smelling of the mystic roses while the waiting lounge smelled of lavender and his own, cheap deodorant.

People started filling in, some being escorted inside while some sat back in the plush leather couches, flipping through journals and waiting. The night had set in. The music in the hall was louder. And amidst the clink and clank of cutlery, he could hear the roar of lightning outside.

But it didn’t intrude the excitement of passionate souls. They ate their dinner, staring at the misted windows and murmuring and smiling all the same. They talked and for some reason, they were happy. While, he was not.

People had started moving out too. By the time the clock had struck nine, the crowd was dwindling. Perhaps it was the rain or maybe, they had other plans, the hall wasn’t as crowded as the other Saturday nights. There were no more calls. All the people in the waiting lounge had been accommodated. He took the time to lay back in his seat and breathe out.

Just then, there was an irritating creak as the door opened and a girl, drenched in rain, clutching her beige overcoat tight, walked inside. Her sneakers dragged, screeched against the marble floors in a painfully slow stance. A mess of wet hair, with trails of dirty rain water running down her cheeks, she was everything he had never seen.

“May I help you, ma’am?” he asked in a slightly irritated tone, mentally wondering if she had entered by mistake, perhaps seeking for shelter.

“Uh,” she stood in front if the desk, her eyes wandering. For one fleeting second, she peered into the hall through the slight opening of the doors and then sighed.

“Table for one,” she muttered.

“One?” he croaked, his voice embarrassingly loud and rude. It took him a moment to gather himself. Then, he spoke again. “If you’re waiting for someone, it’s all right. There’s not much of a crowd today. So you may as well ask for a table for two.”

“One,” she said.

A strange curiosity gripped him. Why one? Didn’t she have a family? Perhaps a circle of friends? Or maybe one old friend she wanted to catch up with on that Christmas night?

Despite the mental outburst of questions, he tore away a piece of paper from the notepad and set it on the table.

“Your name, ma’am?”

She took the pen from him and scribbled her name hurriedly.

“This way,” he spoke and pushed open the doors for the umpteenth time that night to lead her in. He spotted that one empty corner in the room where the lights were not too bright and the music not so loud. Often after the people would’ve left, the boys would huddle there and sing their miseries with bottles of whisky or rum. He was afraid that the table perhaps smelled of rotten bread and alcohol, but then she had asked for a single seater and that was the only one in there.

Yet, somewhere, he didn’t want her to sit there. That corner felt cold and lonely. The flowers were limp. The candles had burnt out.

As he pulled out the chair for her to sit, he couldn’t help but ask, “Will you be okay here?”

She smiled. A painful smile. He could recognize those. Hadn’t he smiled those almost every dawn?

“I’ll be more than fine.”

“And what do you want to order?”

“A cake. A big, chocolate cake. Maybe it could’ve those little flowers on it and lots of ice cream?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but a cake? A full cake?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “It’s my birthday! Am I not allowed to celebrate my birthday with a cake?”

“Indeed, ma’am,” he replied in a timid tone and scribbled her order on a piece of paper. “Anything else?”

“And can you just let me know if you see my group of friends arriving?” she said, almost hastily.

“But ma’am, you only told you are expecting nobody?”

She pretended not to here and pulled out her phone. Taking it as his cue to walk away, he slipped into the kitchen and passed the note to the cook.

“Who orders a full cake for one person?” the hefty man guffawed, but got down to work, nevertheless.

Though she had asked him to keep a check, he didn’t. For deep inside his heart, he knew she was living an illusion. He could see through her pretence. She was broken. She wasn’t happy. She was expecting people who’d never come. She was sitting in silence, yet her lips curled into a smile every now and then as if she was really happy. Even in the faint light, he could see her glimmering eyes. He could hear her breath hitching. He could see her trying to hold herself back when she was on the verge of breaking down.

The tables were empty by now. People had left. Paid their bills. Had their food. And they had walked out, happy.

And then, there was her who didn’t know whether to stay or to leave. She wasn’t bothered about the cake. The rain didn’t matter. The people she was waiting for, did, but they had still not arrived.

“Ma’am,” he spoke, placing the little cake in front of her, dressed with chocolate florets and berries. She gave him a little smile and looked back at her phone again. “And ma’am? Your friends aren’t here yet.”

That made her lose it. Turning away, she took a deep breath but ended up coughing and crying.

“Ma’am?” hesitantly, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I wasn’t even expecting them,” she spoke in muffled tones. “Why would they be? I’ve visited them umpteen times. Been there when they needed someone. Talked to them for hours when they were down. But is that enough?”

She refused to look at him. So kneeling down, he offered her the crisp, white handkerchief that had been tucked inside his breast pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“No!” she laughed. “Why are you apologizing? It’s not even your fault! I’m just expecting a lot too much from people.”

He expected her to push him away but she didn’t protest. Instead, she continued speaking.

“I remember their birthdays. Be it New Year’s Eve or summer breaks, no matter how busy I am, I bake them a cake. I make them cute little videos. I send them handmade collages wishing them. I do everything that they never bother to do. But now I wonder, why I ever did so? Why did I ever take so much pain to bake cakes and cookies? To ping everyone in our friends’ circle and ask them to make cute birthday videos so that I can compile them into a movie? To travel miles to meet them, to be with them? When I’m here, empty and sad and there’s not a single one of them around?”

Though her voice kept breaking, he could feel the pain in her words. He could understand how lonely she felt.

“It’s Christmas. They have plans. They just forgot my birthday. No big deal. They’ve been doing this for years. I don’t get the sweet cards. I don’t get the midnight calls. I don’t get those long text messages. It is as if my place in their lives is not that significant at all. It’s more like they are important for me, but I’m not for them. I woke up late in the morning. I checked my phone, thinking about the hundred messages in my inbox, but there were hardly any wishing me a birthday. I waited for them to call, waited till late afternoon. I looked out at every random car on the road, secretly wishing for them to come over to my house and surprise me. Did I hope for too much?”

He kept quiet. He couldn’t form words. He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him. Yet, it surprised him of how loneliness made people bare their soul out to strangers. She clung to him like an old friend. She didn’t mind him seeing her messy hair and puffy eyes. All she needed at that moment was someone to be there. Someone beside her, so that she didn’t feel as lonely as she already was.

“Table for one,” she huffed. “It sounds like a dialogue from a bad movie.”

“It doesn’t,” he replied. “It speaks to me about a lot many things. I can understand.”

“Everyone says so.”

He nodded. Indeed, she was right. No matter how much he tried, he would never understand her pain. He would never feel the same. His story was different. So was hers.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Happy, indeed,” she mumbled and turned around to the table again.

“Why the cake?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious you didn’t want the cake.”

She pulled out her phone and turned on the camera.

“I’ll just take a picture and save it. So tomorrow when they do remember, I’ll show them this and make up a story of how great my birthday was and how much I enjoyed!”

Hours later, the staff had left and so had the cook. He quietly locked the doors and walked out into the dark, empty street and slowly trudged along the sidewalks.

Minutes later, he stood in front of a dilapidated house with a broken sheet of asbestos acting as the roof. Opening the old, tin gate, he stepped into the darkness, hoping for the one voice he knew would be never there. Yet, he smiled. In his head, he heard his little brother’s voice and it was enough delusion to make him live through the night.

Two people spent that one winter night, lonely, sad and empty.

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Of Late Night Talks (III)

“Your life is pretty interesting enough,” he muttered. “You can write about that. I’d read it.”

I gave him a small, half-hearted smile.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write about my life; pen down the little happenings and the hundred people I come across everyday and write about my dreams and hopes. I can’t do that. It’s too-” I paused, searching for the right adjective. “Too difficult. The story will start to sound too mechanical. There’ll be no soul to it.”

“I don’t think I understand that. My bad I’m not a writer,” he said.

“Where do I start, in case I ever decide to write about my life? The problem is, there’s so much I could write about and yet, it feels so less! What do I write about? Of how I spend nights crying, wishing I weren’t alone? Of how I look at every person, trying to understand them only to have them push me away because they love their facades? I don’t go to parties. I don’t drink. I don’t have a huge social circle. You’d find me on weekends, curled up in my bed, stating at the ceiling fan and thinking nothing. What do I write about? That? That sometimes I feel like doing nothing? That sometimes I just want to sit on the edge of a cliff and spend my entire life there? That sometimes, I feel so empty it almost kills me? Will people read any of it?”

“I’ll tell you what will make then read it,” he said and turned to me. “Somewhere between the lines, down the few hundred pages, they’ll find a person like them.”

“No! We’re all so very different!” I cried almost immediately, but then, I paused again.

He sighed and leaned back. “I’ve gone through all that too, everything that you mentioned. Let’s accept it, each one of us is a little scared, a little confused and a little sad. We cry. We laugh. We fall. We are hopeless. We stand up. We live. We die. We are little miracles. Our lives can be wonderful. Why do you think nobody would be interested in reading about your life and seeing how much it resonates with theirs?! You should write your story. I’d read it.”

“Where do I start?”

“It’s your story.”

“I can’t,” I said and stood up. “My story seems so small, so insignificant than the stories of people I come across everyday.”

“They feel the same too, that your story could be so moving than theirs. But you know what, that is probably what makes each one of our stories so magical. In the midst of our busy lives, starting from waking up and travelling in crammed buses to returning late and spending sleepless nights, there hides this one beautiful story, struggling to be told. And yet, no one gives it a chance.”

Somewhere, I knew, he had struck a chord. The corners of my lips fell into a frown and my breath hitched.

“So, let’s start this another way,” he said and stood up. “What’s your story?”

“Average girl. Vibrant dreams. Too short a life. Confused. Writes not because she has a lot of ideas, but because it keeps her sane. Likes stormy days and moonless nights. As hopeless as others when it is dark. Finds solace in the dawn. Hopes to get somewhere in life. And I don’t know, that’s it. What’s yours?”

“Running scared. Running away from something I’ve no clue about, but I know one day when it catches up, it’ll shatter me. Lives happy days with a lingering doubt that it is the calm before the storm. Is hopeless most of the time. Doesn’t wish or dream much because he doesn’t believe in himself. Hopes to get somewhere in life too. Clueless most of the time. Likes to hear people. Likes to travel because somehow he feels that it gives him a chance to start anew. And yes, though there’s more to it, that’s all I can think of right now.”

“I’d read your story,” I replied.

“I’d read yours too,” he said again. “And you know why you’d read my story and I’d read yours? Because though are stories seem simple, they are beautiful in their own stand. We know our struggles. We know how we get through each day. Why wouldn’t someone like to know more about that? It is the simplicity of our stories that makes it so beautiful and so unique.”

The night turned a shade lighter.

Of Meanings

Sometimes, I like to stare into the horizon. Alone. Sitting in the crisp mid-August air of one of the buzzing metro cities, I sit in silence, staring at the zoning headlights and the one, solitary, constant streetlight right outside my window. There’s no meaning to it. It’s like staring at a blank piece of canvas for long, only this scene right in front is filled with myriad colours.

Cars line the sidewalk. A few happy teenagers walk alongside, laughing and singing to themselves. The evening is slowly drawing in and yet, the sky is empty. Devoid of stars. But it’s no genius prediction that they’ll soon be there. Twinkling and zoning out into the oblivion. It takes a little bit more darkness to see them in full light.

The picture in front of me is meaningless. It’s like a page ripped apart from the perfect storybook and it flutters with the wind, falling in the hands of a lonely stranger or two, causing them to stare at it awhile longer, just to see if it resonates with their lives.

It resonates with mine. It feels empty. The picture feels empty, though there are people moving and cars honking and lights speeding. There’s a wonderful beginning and a glorious end but somehow, I’m stuck in a scene which has no meaning. Nothing. But somehow, it captures me. It fascinates me. I’m perfectly happy with being stuck in the same scene for long. I’m not waiting for a shattering climax or a surprising breakthrough. I find meaning in the meaningless scene. I find everything and yet nothing.

So, I lean out of my window and watch. The people walking below the street don’t know what tomorrow holds. Yet, they want to wake up to that newer dawn, believing their lives will be better. The streetlights flicker and stay and stay and flicker, a silent witness to the everyday world. They are the much needed light for that one lost traveller who is likely to stop by right below and peer at his phone and call his family. People may think that they don’t need the weird, old lamppost there, but they do need the light. And though nights have been synonymous with darkness, surprisingly I see every picture ten times clearer. Sometimes the night hides the reality and paints a distorted illusion. But sometimes, it shows the world in all it‘s glinting, real colours. To me, the day hides more demons than the dusk.

The scene is slowly starting to metamorphose into a meaningful picture. Or may be, I’m looking at it from a different set of eyes. It doesn’t matter. I feel like I could’ve paused and stayed in this scene for even longer even if it was devoid of meaning. Surprisingly the hunt for a meaning doesn’t haunt me anymore. For sometimes, I’ve realized, that every thing in life needn’t have a meaning. Every thing in our lives doesn’t need to be making sense. All we’ve got to do sometimes, is believe, that someday it’s all going to fall back in place. Someday, when we are miles ahead, having passed that meaningless phase, we’re going to look back and it’ll perfectly make sense.

Even if it doesn’t, it’s beauty is not lost. We don’t need to find the meaning, sometimes.

Of Love Around the World

Someone once said that it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all..

Glancing back at the moments with you
A veil covers it all
Darkness seeps into my memories
With you did they take a fall.?

Some of them withold their love
Say they are happy enough
I loved you with all my heart
But why our ending was so rough.?

Shattered like a glass it was
Was it a price of some sin we paid.?
Tears fall like a waterfall
Will you come to my memories aid.?

Laughter and joy seems aeons away
Lonliness fills my every part
In another world you rest in peace
In this world you have a place in my heart.

The ones who said they are content without love
Longing fills them just for a touch
As the sadness ebbs away
I come to reckon, I have more than much.

Basking in the glory of our love
The veil lifts and the darkness fades
Light shines and fills my world
It wasn’t in vain, my crusade.

In my heart, you forever lie
No one can ever take your place
You are my love, half my soul
Always remembered in my wake.

Better to love and then lose
Someone said to take that way
Rather than to not love at all
For you will never reach the bay
Always wandering, searching a ray
Better to love and then lose your love
For someone said that’s a better way..

Of A Letter For My Brother

I’ve been a very bad sister. Remember when I used to steal the pizza rolls off your plate and eat them? Remember when I never saved chocolates for you and ate them alone? Remember the time when I used to hide behind closed doors and scare you? I’ve been a very very bad sister.

Remember the time I decided to go and study in another town, leaving you behind? Remember the hundred thousand fake promises I made, telling you that I’m not going faraway and that I’ll be always near you? The truth is, I’m actually far away from you. Each day, I return from college to an empty dorm room and how I wish you were here to greet me. The distance matters far too much these days. Each night, I go to bed, thinking about you, thinking whether you cry each night too. Each night, I look out from the window at the stars and surprisingly, they seem closer. Each night, I pray a million times to have you around me, to have you close.

I miss you. So much. Only I know the painful way my heart wrenches when I think about you. Only I know how much I’d give up just to be near you again. How I wish you were here, asking me your irritating questions and hugging me on bad days. I can’t wait for college to get over. I can’t wait to cone back to home and hold you close.

My college doesn’t matter now. I’ve realized that each one of us comes to a point in our lives when our family matters to us more than anything. I now realize that I’d give up anything just to be around you again.

For you are everything to me. Everything and more.

Of Forevers And Faraways

“Promise you’ll stay in contact,” I muttered. “Call me twice a day and talk about anything. I promise I’ll be there to listen. Don’t hesitate.”

“Okay, I will,” he said. “But you’re not going faraway, are you? You can always return, can’t you?”

I nodded, unsure of the promises I kept making.

“No, it’s not that faraway, I promise. You can come visit me anytime. And then, there’s Skype too! We won’t lose contact even for a moment!”

“And you’ll be there, right, forever? You’ll have my back?”

“I will.”

“Will you miss me?”

A blaring horn cut us off and the train stood in front of us. For a second, I was relieved I didn’t have to answer that question.

Will I miss him?

No.

I’ll cry on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, wishing for him to be there. I’ll buy enough snacks for both of us, and then sit down and eat in silence because he won’t be there. I’ll bring his favourite chocolates from the l store and save them so that I can give it to him when I come back home next. I’ll do everything we did together, but I’ll never bring myself to cry and miss him ten times more.

“You didn’t answer?” he mumbled. “Will you miss me?”

I looked away, blinking back tears.

Of Windows And So Much More

Misted windows. That is all he remembers.

He remembers that one lonely Sunday afternoon, when the sun forgot to shine a bit brighter and he sat by that one solitary window in his house, squinting out at the frozen glass to see the mist settling down from the hills.

He remembers the buzzing crowds – crowds disappearing into the mist and the mist disappearing into them; of blinding headlights and screeching car tyres – of the twisted picture of the world right outside his little window.

And then, he realizes he remembers something more.

He remembers the mosaic tiled floor. He remembers the rusting window panes and the wet plaster falling off from the walls. And he remembers the one, beautiful girl who stood right in front of him, her tinted cheeks pressed against the glass.

It is always silent. She knits the days away and he reads. On particularly sad days, he sits up and watches her. She rarely looks up and never meets his eyes.

He wonders, far too often, how someone can be so focused on doing the same thing for so long, but then again, doesn’t he do the same?

Sometimes, when the sun is far too bright or the sky too dim, freckled with looming large grey clouds, he forgets what her voice sounds like; what it used to be to look into her eyes and smile.

However, when the sun fades into the iridescent horizon and the winter night seeps in, with little raindrops, he remembers everything all over again. He remembers her face – as glorious as the world outside his little window. He remembers her voice – as beautiful as the raindrops trickling down his little window. He remembers how her skin felt against his – as mystifying as the first rays of the sun of those eternally dark days that he saw through his little window. He sits by the one solitary window in his house and looks out and remembers the world beyond the sun.

Slowly, with aching steps and shivering smiles, he walks to her and holds her hand. She is his little window to everything.

With a groan, he lies down next to her.

It is always silent. He remembers every little thing now. He has a slight urge to run to the window and look out at the world, but he is tired. So he stays beside her, still.

The world continues outside the window, piercing the mist and breaking the silence.

The window stands there, a sole witness to the painfully parallel worlds on either side.

Of The Things We Finally Remember

Sometimes, it comes down to the little things, the little mistakes and the little failures and the long rainy days that linger awhile longer in your mind.

Sometimes, you don’t remember the stage with flashing lights. You don’t remember the people who cheered. You don’t remember the overwhelming moment of pride. At times, all you remember is of that one rainy day when you broke down in the middle of the road, dejected and devastated. All you remember was telling yourself that it’ll be okay.

Sometimes, when it’s dark, that is all you’ll ever remember.