Khushi doesn't want to go back home. It is 7 in the evening already and the library is about to close. She has no other choice but to return home. She contemplates going to the quiet cafe at the end of the street that runs down to her university. She is a regular at the cafe, mostly because she loved coffee and quietness. But then like every other quiet cafe in overcrowded Delhi, it is expensive and doesn't really offer a good view of anything from its air conditioned interiors. She always had a dream of discovering a cafe with the cosy atmosphere everyone is always talking about. But it is futile. She never felt at home, anywhere. Quiet cafes with overpriced menus looking down at overcrowded streets, street vendors selling street food and figures made of only skin and bones bagging for their sustenance, are all she got. She often observes the life below when she is at the cafe. It unsettled her at first when she really looked. She saw how the able, nicely clothed men and women pretended that the baggers, asking them for something to spare, didn't exist. They looked right past them and walked ahead. Only the slight increase in their pace would suggest their awareness of the other kind of human beings, (if one could put them in the status of being human) the kind that doesn't look like they have all the rights of being human. She is no stranger to the practicalities of the baggers being controlled by contractors and people giving alms to a beggar actually helping those who relegate the poor to the identities of bagger. What unsettles her is the invisibility of these people. As if they are ghosts, transparent and incapable of grasping anything tangible. It is as if, if you threw a stone at them it would fly right through them and land on the other side. Like the look in the eyes of those nicely clothed people they are begging from. She tries to stop her mind from wandering into things that are considered no body's business. The poor are poor because they are lazy, undeserving and most people believe that. And then they are happy to have nothing to do with people being poor or killed. But Marx has f**ked up her life and her mind, she concludes. She decides to skip the cafe plan for today. Home sweet home it is.
She has no idea how she ends up somewhere four miles off her home while walking on the pavements with a wandering mind. Shit!! She can't stop her brain from pointing out that she is alone, a good distance away from her home, at 8:10 in the night, in a street of Delhi. It would not be a big deal if she was a regular commuter of Delhi evenings. But she is not and that along with all the horrors she had heard and been warned about made her queasy. She tries to locate the nearest metro station on her and searches for her metro card. It's a good thing she keeps all her card in her purse!!
She jostles along the escalator in the metro station. Her timing couldn't have been worse. Delhi metro during going to work and coming from work hours' is something her vocabulary miserably falls short of describing. Overcrowded is a gross understatement. She curses her own absent mindedness for wandering off somewhere literally she didn't intend to. She squeezes her way inside the ladies coach and mentally pats her own back for making it inside without getting squashed. However once inside she can't say the same for her journey. People still making their way inside to a coach that is almost on the verge of having no breathing space, pushes her towards the end of women's coach. For a moment she contemplates walking over to the men's coach but decides against it remembering her past experiences. At least no one will seek opportunities to grope her in the women coach. Rather she stands at the end of her coach leaning her back against the metallic body of the metro.
Past one or two stations she finds herself facing Arnav. He had come over to tap her shoulder to the women's coach as it seemed. She crosses the protective barrier of women only coach that empowers women to escape groping and touching (even if for a short while in the men's space) and enters the other side where you expect the above mentioned behaviour because "why don't you go the women's coach then?'. They don't talk during the entire duration of their journey except when she smiles, amused at Arnav glaring at fellow passengers for gawking at her, his glare turns to her then.
"It's considered normal, you know." she tells him as soon as they get out of the metro station.
"By who? I am sure as hell not you." He knows she is talking about people of his gender staring at her in metros.
"Everyone who thinks it is their birthright to look wherever they pleased. Even if it makes someone uncomfortable. No one can put you in jail for that. And who cares about etiquette?"
"So you are okay with it? People making you squirm under their gaze?"
"Well, if I am not then I am difficult, a crazy feminazi'. I am a woman after all. I deserve to squirm under anyone's gaze. That's how I am to be put in my place."
"How are you extra sour today?"
"Nah! Actually today I am being easy going you see. You left early!"
"Had some work. I didn't imagine you would notice!" He says with a straight face, the smile in his eyes hidden by the darkness of the street.
"Who would have thought Arnav Singh Raizada knows how to flirt".
"Many in fact. Aradhana to start with, Pooja, Shraddha..."
"So I am the only one to whom you are a recluse."
Was that hurt in her voice?' Arnav looks directly at her, surprised.
"You can't blame me. You avoided me like I am a disease."
"Because you made it clear that you would like to avoid me as much. Never let go of a chance to..."
"Khushi, if we start with the past we might as well lay a stone on whatever it is that we are trying to" become. One step at a time. Please?"
"Okay. Coffee?"
"Are you asking me out on a date, Gupta? I believe you could have done better."
"Home it is then." She walks ahead in rapid steps with ice in her eyes. He chuckles to himself; he hadn't expected crimson painting her cheeks either at his blatant flirting.
"Seems like you need your coffee. I know a great place. Expensive and phony. Totally your type."
"Just like the games you play and call it love, friendship or whatever. Don't you ever get tired of weighing your moves and thinking of playing the dice right all the f**king time?" She hates the games people have relegated human relationships to. A carefully placed word here, another there and voila, you have won yourself a friend. Sometimes she wishes there was a manual for how to behave, act and talk around people. So much for blood and lives wasted on free will. That's another reason why she never can be sure of the relationships she has with people around her. She sucks at this game, she tells herself while justifying her distrust in relationships.
"Khushi relax. I am only trying to avoid awkwardness that is looming just right around the corner bidding its time. With us, do you think it is going to be easy? When so much of history suffocates even the thought of us being in talking terms. You are going to want to hide when choices become difficult, like you always do. And me, I don't even trust myself with anything or anyone."
"What are you saying Arnav? You, who is so sure of himself even when he is wrong can't trust himself?" She can't keep her disdain away from her voice.
"You know nothing about me Khushi. Don't assume."
"I don't Arnav. That is your job."
"Khushi, for once in your life, stop pushing people away just because you are not sure. No one is certain of everything Khushi. People learn to live with uncertainty. Your tendency be sure of victory even before the race has began can only bring misery. Nothing good comes out of trying to be ahead of time."
"I am not trying to measure our friendship."
"Aren't you? Aren't you already calling this a game in your head? Are you not trying to guess my moves and finding your own meaning to everything I do or say?"
"Who is assuming now?"
"I know you Khushi. I don't assume."
"How are you so sure that you know me? We haven't been around each other for..."
"Because I see myself when I look at you."
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