I feel lonely today!!!

I feel lonely today!!!

It was his daily routine; just like every day, he took out the pills from the drawer of his wardrobe. Clutched the wrapper in his hands for a few seconds & dropped it again in the drawer. He kept the door of the wardrobe open & took a few steps back until he reached the bed. The wall clock kept teasing him & as usual the sleep kept deceiving him. He tried reading a book he had kept near his pillow since 6 months & had failed to concentrate every time he opened it & today wasn't an exception either. He closed the book & kept lying in the bed helplessly. It was around 3 in the morning when he stopped trying, he knew he won’t be able to sleep yet again. He got up & turned on the lights. He looked pale, tired as he watched himself in the mirror. The dark circles around his eyes were growing too dark to ignore. He walked back to the wardrobe slowly, picked up the wrapper, took out one tablet with shaky hands & shoved it down his throat. He didn’t keep the pills back at their place. He knew he won’t feel better with just one so he took out another pill. Tears kept rolling over his cheeks; he couldn’t believe he was doing it. Till date he couldn’t digest the very fact that he was prescribed “anti depression” pills. He felt better as the draught of tears had ended today. It was surprising that he had not been able to even cry since many months. He felt really very lonely all these days. He failed to figure out his own feelings, he failed to figure out what was wrong. No one would have believed that a person like him was on anti depression pills. Don’t know if it was the pills or something else but it worked. He actually started thinking as to what went wrong. It was like solving a jigsaw puzzle; he had all the pieces in front of him but couldn’t put them at the right place. As he was struggling through the pieces his eyes started closing & soon sleep overpowered the thoughts. It happened for the first time since 6 months. Yes, the pills had actually started working.

While he got up a bit late in the morning he realized that he was actually feeling better. The same dull routine was waiting for him. He got ready while the driver kept waiting for him at the basement of his building. His arrival at the office ensured a so called busy day for him. Calls, meetings, mails; he skipped his lunch yet again while the “To do list” on his desktop & the empty cups of coffee on his table kept piling up. He headed towards one of his clients office as he updated his boss about the earlier meetings over phone. As usual the meeting went well. He knew he would grab this order. Orders, prices, praises & the whole professional success had failed to make him happy. He walked to his car as he replied to the calls declined during the meeting.

Dark clouds were hovering over the city as he started his journey back to the office. His driver increased volume as he pressed his foot on the accelerator. Some RJ on radio station was asking the listeners what are they doing while the city is experiencing the first rain of the season, does rain make them nostalgic? Do they think of someone special as the fragrance of the soil fills in the air?

He closed his eyes as he sat on the back seat of the car. The radio slowly turned quite & now he could hear the rain drops falling on the roof of the car, “taparrr, tapoorrrr, tipoorr”. That music pulled a chord in his heart; it was something very unique & fascinating. He smiled as he kept his eyes closed. The RJ had stopped blabbering; he came out of the trance as he heard the song. The music mixed with the sound of the rain drops was magical. He asked the driver to stop, loosened the neck tie, kept his laptop & notepad on the seat & got down of the car. He needed it badly; he spread his hands, as if he was trying to embrace the rain. Driver kept watching him in amusement until he told him to leave & started walking. The words of that RJ kept whispering in his ears, “Does the rain make you nostalgic?” Each & every drop of rain took him there. Yes he started walking, walking down the memory lane. He wanted to call them but some days back he had deleted all his group friends’ numbers. He continued walking on the muddy road heading towards the memories.

It was one of those much awaited rainy days. The first rain had hit their city. They were sitting in the college canteen. Anju, Johny, Sumit, Drishti, Teju & he were sitting on their regular table as the clouds & the lighting started giving out signals of the first rain, all of a sudden cool breeze started soothing the hot humid day. As he was beating the wooden table with his bare hands Anju started singing a song, “Bheegi bheegi bheegi jadubhari lamho ki yeh baatein..Dekho karne lagi hoon mein boondo se baatein”. He shouted at Anju, “stupid you spoiled my music” & started imitating Annu Malik in a nasal tone, “Dekho barish ho rahi hain, its raining its raining”. Everyone laughed hearing that irritating tone while Anju shouted back, “ A gappe, reku nakos”. Everyone started laughing all the more loudly as Anju put her hand around his shoulder & they both laughed out loud with the rest of the group. Anju gestured him with her eyes to go on a ride, to which he responded quickly; everyone else just followed.  His Pulsar started swiftly with just one push to the button start. He stopped before Teju & gestured her to be his pillion rider. Teju’s eyes stuck with Anju’s & before she could understand anything she looked down, don’t know why but she found it difficult to keep looking into Anju’s eyes anymore. Anju pulled Johny back, sat behind him & shouted lets go as if nothing had happened. As usual Teju sat behind him maintaining a proper distance. Anju was singing a latest song to which he gave background music of his horn. Everyone else on the road including their friends seemed disturbed & irritated by their so called singing skills but they didn’t notice.  They reached their favorite snack joint. It was a typical roadside place famous among the college crowd for the “value for money thing”. Egg rolls, veg rolls, this puff that puff & Kanda Bhaji… Yes!!! That was a perfect start to the rains. Everyone stuffed themselves with the hot snacks as the rain had gained momentum. Anju urged Johny to join her as she started walking out of the shade in the rains. Johny did a mockery of her as he suggested he won’t be interested. She glanced at him, he got up & pulled Teju’s hand requesting her to join them. Let it be said Anju as she started walking out without waiting for him. Go you nerd she is going alone, can’t you understand? shouted Teju. He left Teju’s hand & ran behind Anju, she noticed him coming behind her but didn’t turn back. He curled his hand around her shoulder, she said nothing. They both kept walking without saying a word, rain kept showering at its pace. She was moving away from him, he hold her hand & pulled her. She was frowned with his act & pushed him away saying she didn’t like getting so close. He was surprised by her response; there were no limits in their friendship before this. He loosened his grip over her wrist as she pulled her hand out of his fingers & turned her back to him. A tear rolled down her cheek but he couldn’t notice. May be it was the rain or maybe he was paying a little more attention to someone else than before. Rest of the friends kept watching from a distance where they couldn’t hear them speak, only the rain drops kept filling the gap between them with the sound Taporr, Tapoor, tipoor… She returned to her seat & he kept standing in the middle of the road frozen in surprise. He spread his hands to embrace the rains & looked helplessly in to Anju's eyes, only to realize that even her eyes were on non talking terms with him. The cracking sound of the thunders pulled him out of his trance. He was alone, this time walking on a footpath & thinking what made Anju drift away from him so quickly. He had asked the same question to himself many a times but couldn’t find the right answer to it. He had asked Anju too but she had always tried avoiding the issue saying that everything was just fine & nothing had changed. The way she kept saying, “Nothing has changed” ensured that everything had actually changed. Yes he could gauge that everything had changed but he had no answer to the two important questions, “How” & “Why”. Everything happened in front of his eyes, everything was so close to him & ya it absolutely was a jigsaw puzzle of which he had still failed to put the pieces at the right place. He felt all the more lonely as he kept walking on the way back to his house. Rain had stopped but it had triggered a question which didn’t had & would never have the real & satisfactory answer.

He reached home & sat down next to his wardrobe with his wet clothes still on. First thing he did was, he opened "that" folder in his laptop, it had numerous photos from his college times. Some natural poses, some idiotic expressions, all in all invaluable memories. It took him right there again. He was sitting in the canteen & had no work to do as usual. He pulled out Anju's laptop from her bag, tried connecting to some social networking site but the WiFi signal was weak. He thought of moving to the main building for getting stronger reception. Almost 15 minutes later Anju came searching him & no sooner did she saw him she yelled at him, "are you mad? I was searching for the laptop in the whole college, for God's sake can't you behave yourself? I mean its ok if you dont ask for permission but you should have at least informed me that you have taken it". Everyone turned silent as he shut down the laptop & handed it over to Anju & said I am sorry I thought when you don't see the laptop you'll understand its with me. It should be a two way communication damn it, you should also understand my silence she said in a shaky voice. He felt the warm water rolling on his cheeks as he tried not to think about those memories again. And he realized that it was him who had chosen to be alone, he was a loner by choice coz he had stopped returning calls, replying to messages. And this was not just limited to Anju, he stopped doing this for everyone else too. After passing out & securing a job he deleted all the numbers from his cells & closed down all the possible ways of returning. Now also he didn't want to think about all that again but he had no control over his actions. He pulled out all the stuff he had preserved in the wardrobe since his college days, engrossed himself in each & every little thing. He found a few tickets of the movies that they watched together, some tissue papers over which they wrote some stupid messages for each other, tooth picks, some roses, torn last pages of the books which read their names, a photo in sepia tone in which Anju was tossing up one of her eye brows & he was imitating her by pulling his eyebrow with his hand. He stuffed all his invaluable belongings back into the wardrobe as they turn hazy. He wiped off the tears & pulled out his old diary, went on to Anju’s birth date as fast as possible. Though he had not wished her since years on her b’day, he still remembered it so clearly. He touched the page gently with his palm. She had written a message for him on that page, “Keep your eyes open to the things happening around you & to the naked truth… I will not be there always to be your navigator… Love Anju”. Below it, she had mentioned her residential address & phone number. He searched for his cell phone helplessly, grabbed it & dialed the number mentioned over there in a hurry. Beep beep beep… Thuk, thukthuk… his heart was pounding as the phone started giving out beeps before connecting. Soon the operator spoke… “The number you have dialed is not in service” he kept pressing the cell to his ear till the operator stopped speaking. Beep beep beep... It was evident that she had either relocated, got married or changed her number. His grip on the cell loosened & the cell slipped out of his hand, a drop of tear rolled over his check & went on to fall on her name. He wiped it from the page of the diary which unfortunately wiped off her name too. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle kept lying scattered in his mind; he pulled out the pills & shoved two pills down his throat. He closed his eyes & helped the tears flow down before he threw the wrapper back in to the drawer.

That date of his new diary read, “I chose to be alone & unfortunately I have succeeded... A loner by choice... The only thing to accompany me are....Memories!!!”

Kay P Aar

(22^nd September 2012)