Mayari

I remember watching her, it was a long long time back that I can't quite recollect how she looked like that day. She was waiting for bus after college, I don't remember who she was with, all I remember was that I was afraid to go near her, I don't really know why, but I was. I watched, I remember watching her, she looked beautiful.

***

I don't usually carry my umbrella to places, it's not that I particularly enjoyed getting wet, it's just that I don't like carrying too many things when I'm traveling. I'd prefer getting wet to perpetually living attentive to my umbrella.

It was raining that day, I don't really remember where I was. We were walking, she had her umbrella opened, it could barely fit us both. I could feel her close to me, I could feel myself all messed up. The rain was pouring down and parts of us were together and dry, while parts of us were apart and soaking.

***

She was by no means the most charming, she wasn't perhaps the most beautiful. But when I think about her I tend to remember a motorbike ride.

It was midnight, or close to midnight, I am not sure. I was driving around to ease my thoughts. There was a storm brewing, both on the inside and out. It rained unawares, it hit me from all sides. There was noise, there was thunder and the more I drove, the more I became weak. I was slowly drowning in the rain.

There were no signs of shelter, and my spects got blurry. I couldn't see a thing, I thought I never had it in me to survive the tempest. For once, I thought I'd pass out, the rain was ceaseless. Occasionally I could see lightning drawing sad silver lines upon a sober black sky. What a sad way to leave things behind, I thought.

I closed my eyes, I knew I may not make it, I cried. Suddenly, out of nowhere it stopped and everything seemed calm. I didn't hear the rain beating down, I didn't see any lightning. I looked up and saw a bridge running perpendicular to the road, it was leaking from places, it looked weary and old, but it was keeping the storm away.

***

"I don't know why you have to make everything so complicated" she was saying. I was growing numb, I was more and more confused. My hands were shaking, my brain was shivering. I had this cough that won't stop, my throat was bleeding.

"I didn't mean to.." I was saying "I never meant to"

I kept walking up and down the whole night and I couldn't understand a thing. I had this great ledger of failures and losses that when I rewind I have plenty of negativities to hold onto. She is here, I was thinking, she is here with you now. Maybe if any one of those failures didn't happen, you wouldn't have even known her, I kept saying. I got up, I couldn't lose her, not today.

"I'm sorry" I said. She had slept. I kept walking around the whole night.

***

That night, it was cold that night, but I didn't feel a thing. The valley before me was covered in fog, all I could see was bleak darkness. We were.. no.. I was smoking and was so far away from everything I've ever known that it almost seemed like complete freedom. I always had this idea of leaving things behind and traveling till I die.

There was this song, it still catches me sometimes, but the more I heard it that night the more I felt I may ruin everything. I was still pulled apart by ideas of home and ideas of freedom. I was lodged between currents of thought and the satisfaction of letting things go. What is the purpose of life? Yeah, I'd say it never had any true purpose but the ones we make.

She was texting me on the other side, I knew it was a question between living a sane life or trying to survive an idea which may make me go insane at the end of it all. What is the purpose of life? Is it to live an idea insanely, or is it to live by a life normally?

I don't remember much of what I said to her that day, but then I said if you could tolerate a mad poet I will be here waiting for you. I smoked another round, the fog cleared in the valley, I could see lights.

***

"Given a chance would you not meet her, again?" the doctor asked.

"Who?"

"Your friend, or lover, or whatever she is?"

"Why do you have to ask that?" I said.

"Leave it. Can you tell me why she was so special to you?"

My hands were getting cold. I badly wanted to find her hands from somewhere, it was freezing.

"Anand, can you tell me?"

I felt a strange sensation to run away, or to punch this guy straight on his face, or both.

"Have you ever rode a motorbike in the rain, doctor?" I asked.

"I have" he replied.

"Then you'd know.." I said.

***

One thing I tried not to do was complicate things, I was unsure of many things going on with me and inside my head, but I am sure that I never complicated it.

"But I always thought you loved me" I said.

"I do, but it is not how it seems"

I was confused, I was doubting myself, I was doubting whatever notions I've ever held. I may very well be an average writer, I maybe only a mediocre thinker, and maybe I couldn't do anything good with my life.

"I hope you'd understand me" she said.

I have reached a point wherein I couldn't understand myself. I was lost midway, I was neither living the idea, nor the normal life.

"I do understand you" I said "But it will take me every ounce of love I have for you.."

***

I remember watching her, she was beautiful. I knew it was all about taking that first step, going towards her. It doesn't have to be today, you can tell that you love her some other time, I thought. Just make that first step now. I was afraid, I was childish, I was stupid. I stood there and kept watching, she was beautiful and I could never move an inch.