Dedicated. Read on.
"Madam, bas chaalis rupaya, lelo lelo"...."Stupid magazines!!" saying this she brushes the guy away and rolls the window up. It begins to rain thunderously. The windshield is hit by huge drops of rain as loud as stones getting pelted at it from far away. The wipers don't seem very effective but good enough. People around are taken off-guard by the sudden outburst of rain. There is a traffic jam and chaos everywhere, the radio is playing a familiar song. "He loved the rains and getting drenched.." She shrugs the thought away and concentrates on the steering wheel at hand. " I wonder what he must be doing right now" again shakes her head and looks at the raindrops on her window praying for the traffic to clear up and her thoughts to wash away with the rain.
"Isn't the rain just lovely?" says Amrita and looks at her with a big smile on her face. "I hate rains, what's the big fuss about? Its wet everywhere, muddy and messy" saying this she goes back to sipping her coffee. She was lying, trying to hide the real reason behind this hatred. Amrita just looks at her annoyingly and says "You are the most unromantic person ever!" She smiles nonchalantly with a mock approval. "Wait till you meet this I set you up with, you'll just love him." She rolls her eyes, "This is what you said about Dev, and I loved it when he left unannounced from the dinner table, it meant less torture from all the unnecessary garrulity." Amrita with a scowl on her face, "You called him a shitface with verbal diarrhoea!!" She laughed and said, "It was bloody apt, wasn't it? Give it up Amrita, its not gonna happen." Amrita gets a call from her daughter and leaves. She goes back to being her broody self.
Its 6 in the morning and she's been putting the alarm on her cell on snooze for over half an hour. Finally wakes up at 6:15, grudgingly goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She's again flooded by some memories. Splashes her face with cold water and begins brushing mechanically. 6:45 am and the thoughts are still there, making no sign of leaving her alone. She takes a shower and puts music on full volume. Rammstein at 7 in the morning, she laughs to herself.
"Bread butter jam, I don't cook ham.
I eat vegetables but not animals that live in stables.
I don't mind eggs but not creatures with legs.."
She sings automatically as she enters the kitchen and immediately regrets it. She had stopped making such ridiculous poems many years ago, let alone singing them. But this morning was different, her thoughts of him were stronger. "Dammit, what's wrong with me?!!" she screams at herself. She goes to the medicine shelf and takes out the bottle of anti depressants, which never really worked for her and pops 4 pills into her mouth and swallows them without having water. "Work and work alone.." had become the new motto in her life, leaving little time for family, friends or life.
The telephone rings, she runs to answer it, happy about the distraction. “We have the results, got the imaging data analysed and the significant values checked. Looks pretty much like you had predicted it. This is big you know. Congratulations. You must celebrate." She is elated and is about to start singing again but she fights that urge. She calls up her mom and tells her about the news. She is extremely happy and almost cries out of joy. She calls up Amrita asking her if she can meet her. Amrita is only too happy to oblige taking half a day off from work. They go off to a bar and have some drinks. She tells Amrita the good news, who is also very happy for her. "Hey its getting late, I promised Rajesh that I'll be back home for dinner, I hope you don't mind, I would have really loved to stay...” saying this she indicates that its time for them to leave the bar and head home.
There is something about getting drunk and being alone. Well, she wasn't technically alone if you count her two dogs and a cat. "My lovely beasts.." she would adoringly call them but not today. She is not able to exercise enough control over her mind and repress those thoughts which she'd been doing forever. She sits in her balcony with tears streaming down her face. Her loneliness had come back to haunt her. There was no one to share her happiness with and that made her reminiscent of her past and that fateful decision.
"If only.." she said to herself out loud for the first time since that day. Maybe it was her way of gifting him by acknowledging her horrendous mistake. "This is the perhaps the best gift I can ever give you at this point of time." She looks up at the night sky with a sad smile asking Him to watch over him.
