Catching Up...

I was staring at the wall, a photo frame which said “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other” I was thinking about the quote trying to figure out the reason as to why was it hanging there? Suddenly the doctor walks in holding her schedule, she fails to notice me and rushes to her chair. She looks at me, “What the fuck!!”

I have a smile on my face because that’s exactly what I was expecting. She looks into her schedule file, “Mr. Darcy 9-5” she reads it out. “You’re nowhere to be seen for a year and show up at my clinic doing dramatic things like this, asshole”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy and you got married. Congratulations”, we hug each other.

“It’s almost time to wish happy anniversary and you’re congratulating for my wedding. I’m pissed at you; Didn’t even attend my wedding, ass. You couldn’t wait for one day huh!!”

“C’mon you know it. I’ve explained you a million times, the reason. By the way you’ve turned a lesbian??”

“Why??!!”

“That quote?”

“Oh that! It was gift from Rohan”

“Ok now I get it”

“Priya, tell me how’s the clinic running? How’s everyone at home? Snighda?”

“Snighda has two kids now, a boy and a girl. You should go and meet her. Clinic’s great, there are no one who cancel all my day’s appointment and book full day like you”, she smiles.

“Before we carry on, let’s go out. Anyways no appointments”, I wink at her.

“Where??”

“Anywhere, any place, you have anything in mind?”

“No. I want to go home, if no appointments”, she says acting a bit lazy.

“C’mon I show up after a year at your clinic, book a full day appointment and this is what I get”, I show her the ‘baabaji ka thullu’ symbol.

“Ok ok, don’t overact. I’ll come. But need to be home early”

“Yeah we’ll see about that”

“No no, I’m serious by seven at least”

“Yeah sure”

***

“Tell me, how’s your married life?? Almost completing a year next month”, I ask her as we are stuck in traffic.

“Great. What about you? Any plans of getting married?”

“Yeah that’s one of the reasons why I am here. See” I show her picture in my phone. “This is the girl”

“She’s cute. Not much as me. Have you spoken to her?”She says with a wink.

“Haha. Yeah, I‘ve spoken to her; Nice girl”

“Good”

The traffic clears off and we carry on. I felt like getting out of the city considering its noise, pollution and the crowd.

“I heard you teach at KCM”, I ask her.

“Yeah, twice a week”

“Do you remember I would say that I would come and kidnap you one day from your clinic?”

“Yeah”

“Now I feel like I’m doing that. But don’t know where to go”

“Let’s eat something first. I’m hungry”

“Ok let’s stop at Kulshekar”

“Ok, then I’ll go home from there and you can go wherever you want”, she winks at me.

“No way!! Till 7”

***

“What’s the menu??”

A man spoke as if he had a flight to catch. But I had heard what I wanted to hear, a masala dosa. We both ordered it, maybe because even she heard only that.

“Was masala dosa the only thing you heard??”  I said with a laugh.

“No, I wanted to eat it. I had it in my mind when I said I was hungry”

“Ok ”

The masala dosas arrived. “Wow!!” she said. “That’s one big masala dosa”

She ate it pretty fast, compared to me as I had a reputation of being the slowest in the family.

“Let me tell you something”, she said.

“What?” I asked her curiously.

“I’ll let you know later”

***

We were back on the road and still unaware of our destination.

“What was that thing you wanted to tell me??” still curious.

“Ok, yeah. I’m pregnant”, she said in a soft voice.

“What??!!”

“Yeah, only my family and Rohan’s family know. Only two months”

“Wow!! Congratulations. It’s time we go back. I’ll drop you home”  I stop aside to make a turn.

“Hehe. It’s fine. I spoke to Rohan and he’s fine with it. He trusts you”

“Aww!! That’s nice. Not that possessive?”

“He is possessive about me, not too much though. But he trusts you, because I do”

“Ok cool. You remember those days when we would discuss about the future and make up stories and have long conversations about it all night”

“Yeah I know. We would speak random things and have fun”

“Do you remember the night of my birthday, you forgot it. Then you remembered and we went on speaking into midnight, where we made up lot of funny stories about the future”

“Yeah now I remember, but what were we talking about?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I think you asked me what you want to do as it was my last year of teenage. I said I want to lose my virginity in a funny way and you started blackmailing that you would take a screenshot and show it to my wife. Then that went on to you becoming a ghost and taking revenge and me realizing that Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna was your favorite movie”, I said laughing out loud.

“Wow!! Your memory, unbelievable and KANK, not my favorite”

“Yeah yeah, I know that”

“Actually I did take a screenshot”

“What?? You had told me that you deleted the message and you didn’t take it”

“I lied”

 I shook my head and asked her, “Where is it??”

“You believed huh”, she laughs out loudly.

“Haha” laughed sarcastically and added, “Do you remember anything??”

‘’Let me think… I remember that New Year transition; we had a very fruitful conversation. You played on my birthday. I remember the Kite festival”

“Thank god. You at least remember. I remember that New Year transition, you were telling me about why vasectomy is a better procedure as compared to tubectomy and why you feel god is a sexist sometimes? You remember my guitar performance, proves that it wasn’t bad ”

“How can I forget the guitar? That was the most romantic thing anyone had done for me until then”, she said with a wink.

“Romantic ante. I had played for all my friends”

“Yeah yeah whatever, I felt special when you played for me at twelve”

We had reached Moodabidri by then, a small town with a lot of heart and energy. It had a majority of Jain population and as a result there was basadis at each stop. The ever so famous thousand pillars Basadi was one among them and she wanted me to stop there.

“They say if you count these pillars you become a pillar yourself. When I used to come here as a kid, they would say a man tried to count and now there are 1001 pillars”, I said in a funny way.

“That’s a hoax. I feel it’s like a folktale that developed to tell people that don’t waste your time in doing things that are not necessary, if you do so even you become unnecessary like a pillar”

“Wow!! Somebody’s in a philosophical mood. Usually it’s me”

“Haha. Nothing like that, listening to your philosophies and my husband’s I’ve become somewhat a philosopher”

 We walked around and sat down inside the temple. The inscription on the slabs, intricate detailing on the temple ceiling defined the grandeur and vigor that everyone experienced in their visits.

“Every time we look at such temples, we always ask ourselves- How did they build it?? Don’t we?” I said looking at the stone chandelier.

“Yeah we do. The lack of technology and things like that is what you mean right?”

“Yeah”

“I agree”

“When we were getting to know each other, we were in a phase where we weren’t treated as kids or as adults. We were maturing and we did so talking to each other about various topics. That’s why maybe we are friends even now, because we trusted each other when we talked”

“Maybe”

“The kid inside you will be so philosophical that you’ll be surrounded by philosophies in the house. Now that he or she has met me too”, I said with a laugh.

“Haha. Maybe”

“Let’s leave”

***

After a healthy lunch, I was driving towards karkala. It’s a city I always loved. A small city, with its small lanes, the picturesque rocks and the basadis on top of them always made me feel like home.  Always loved going there and more importantly it had one of the most beautiful basadis right in the middle of the lake.

“Are you in touch with any of your college friends?? Medical I mean”

“Only one, Nissar”

“Ok, the one I would say you to be in touch with for life. I always believed in making friends for life and always would give lectures to you about it, right”

“Yeah you would do that a lot. You even had told that you would stay in touch and you miss my marriage”

“Past couple of years, I’ve been busy. But missing your marriage, I would never miss it. You know what happened, my best friend was leaving to LA next day and I wouldn’t be seeing him for a long time. It’s not that he’s more important to me or something like that. It’s just that I can see you anytime I want but him not too often. Look at us we both are on a drive and you’re expecting, I feel so good and proud to have a friend like you. Jaasti show maadbeda, kombu belesbeda”

“Haha”

We had reached the Vaaranga Basadi. It was the most beautiful place according to me. We had to take a boat to the central basadi. Only the two of us were there. The old man rowed us to the central basadi place, took us around the temple.

“You can stay for an hour. I’ll come after an hour”, The Jain said.

We sat on the ground slab, staring at the waters, absorbing the quietness and the beauty of the life in those waters. I looked into my phone to find a poem I loved.

“Ek baat hai jo hoton tak aayi nahi, Bas aankhon se hai jhaankti,Tumse kabhi, mujhse kabhi, Kuch lafze woh maangti…”

“We type the thoughts before it gets accompanied by our voice. That’s how we came to know each other right”, I said.

“Yeah true”, she said with a laugh.

“Let me continue”

“It’s very less we see people, meet, talk to each other and share thoughts face to face now a days. So there is no talking with eyes”, I said raising my eyebrows.

“Haha”

“It also talks about the way ideas get transferred between people and become one as they go along sharing thoughts”

“Yup”

“Jinko pehenke honton tak aa jaaye woh , aawaz ke baahon mein baahein daalke ithlaye who, lekin jo yeh ek baat hain, ehsaas hi ehsaas hai…”

“It’s beautiful. How the thought comes out by embracing the voice and the way that voice expresses itself to the other person. We can go on talking, but do we feel this way when we used to do it through the wireless media? Maybe we did, maybe not. This is the basis for technology, to make things available but at the same time we are losing the feel of the voice that has developed from a thought”

“Why do you think so much?”

“I don’t know. Just so that I notice the things you ignore”, I winked at her.

***