The Chronicles of an Unassuming questioner

It was around 5.30 in the morning. The orange tinted horizon suggests one that perhaps the sky had seen her lover and was blushing unabashedly. It had rained hard that night. The car park was strewn with fallen leaves which suggested that the morning calm was a hangover from a stormy night. The car looked remarkably clean due to the night long shower. Inside the car two young men were seated comfortably as they glued their faces on to the water trickling windows. Thomas Ahilan was seated beside his friend Suresh in the company car as they awaited its departure from Office. They had a long day. Rather a long night. It was the end of the last of the night shifts for the month. Suresh looked visibly unrestrained and peppy. He was a silently whistling a low tune.

Suresh said “God bless this rain. It was such a relief from this hot Chennai summer. This rain seems to lift the burden off my shoulders. Somehow I could work so much better tonight when I know that it is pouring outside the office. I wish it could rain like this every time we have a night shift”. Suresh almost giggled towards the end, smiling at his own child-like wonder. Thomas said “Oh yes it is such a beautiful weather. But man, you must see those highways during a stormy night. I don’t know how many accidents happened on the account of yesterday’s night. The other day I was coming home after a visit to my native and we saw a van overturned by the side of the road. It was such a nightmare for us to get those people into the hospital that night. I will never forget that storm.” Suresh for a moment took his eyes off the window and looked at Thomas in half-wonderment and half-disdain. No one else can be such a dampener like Tom(as he is affectionately called). Still Suresh wonders how come Tom is still his best friend. Perhaps having been used to this occasional sobriety of Tom, Suresh just ignored this as yet another paradoxes of this queer friendship. Tom asked the driver who was reading the morning newspaper on when the car will leaving. The driver at first ignored this question and then later told him that just one more person has to pile in before they could get started. Suresh looked nonchalantly at all of this. For him, it looked like he could stay put by that windows forever. As long as it was 5.30 in the morning after a stormy night. Forever.

Presently another young man came in and entered the car. He looked very jittery and his nervousness stood out especially when seen against the laid-back demeanor of the other two passengers. Presently the car started towards the city. Towards their homes. The office where they worked was a full 30 km’s from the city and Suresh and Tom especially loved this ride. It was during this ride that they talked, laughed and argued. The young man who entered the car the last perhaps sensing his own conspicuity reached out for his cellphone and began dialing a number. What started as a casual banter soon gave in to something very serious. Sensing the seriousness of it all both Tom and Suresh decided to play peeping Tom for a while and dared not utter one extra word that might come in between the phone conversation and them. “Hi Ashok, actually the reason for the call is to tell you something very important. I finally did it. I proposed my love to her……Yeah, I know……But I can’t wait anymore. You know how I feel about her. Every passing day is like a furnace for me. I would rather be sober if she says no than be so restless about a love that is unexpressed…..I know she is not from my religion. But I don’t care. I hope I can handle all that mess my family will create. It feels so wonderful to have expressed my love…..Oh you wanna know how I did it? This is what I did: Slipped the red rose in the middle of a Valentine greeting card and put it just on top of her keyboard. When she comes to office today morning this will be the first thing she will see. Oh man, you know how excited I am. It feels so relieved to just muster that courage to tell her how much she means to me. I knew this day was coming from the very first day I saw her. She had something…..Actually I really can’t sleep now when I go home now. I will just be waiting for her call. I really don’t know what I will do if she says no. Actually I don’t know whether I have done the right thing. Sometimes I wonder which is more torturous: Fuming over a love that is unexpressed or grieving about a love that is unrequited. I hopelessly hope that she says yes. My mind just dazzles even when I think about how it should feel when she agrees to this little scheme of mine. Now it all makes sense. All those melancholic poetry written by poets over the ages condemning God on having created this thing called Love. This Love is driving me mad and at the same time I cannot but wallow in the helplessness of it. All I can do now is wait….This one sleepless morning is nothing compared to the countless sleepless nights I spent drooling over her. It feels so much better now that I have poured my heart onto you……Anyways I will let you know how this thing turns out. Now it is 6.30, She would be in by 9 and I should be expecting a call anytime after that….Sure. And yes, as usual, this information is only for you….Alright see you then.”
Suresh could not resist looking flustered. Tom looked relatively unscathed. Neither could utter any word and the air in the car was thick and uneasy. Perhaps only person who looked the same was the car driver probably because of the fact that his knowledge of English was strictly restricted to the thesaurus of the Vehiclehood. Like Stop, right turn, left turn, Wait etc. Finally Suresh managed to ask the driver to pass on the newspaper and soon gave everyone an impression that he had an extraordinary interest in the intricacies of Real Estate in Chennai. (Suresh had to settle for the supplement on Real Estate as the love-stricken passenger had earlier managed to grab the better portion of the newspaper. After an uneasy 20 minutes, the third passenger seated alongside the driver asked the driver to stop, signed the log sheet and got down. It was only after the car started that Suresh could manage to give one long sigh.
Suresh said “I wonder what it is about love. How can something, whatever it is, I don’t care what, cloud a person from such a beautiful reality. Today seems to be the most beautiful day in this year and how come for someone this day happens to be so unsettling and turbulent. I just had a feeling that I can bask in this morning forever. How can this beautiful climate be a heaven for one and hell for the other? And I can’t believe that that guy fell for a girl from another religion. Does he really expect her to reciprocate? I dare not think of his chances. Why are people like this spoiling such lovely days? Considering the frequency of such lovely days is abysmal in a city like Chennai I cannot but hold this guy in contempt for being so tumultuous and disturbed. How can someone overlook what Nature has to offer? Such delicious air; unpolluted by the city’s machinery. Those beautiful trees drenched in this life-giving rain. The birds which scurry up looking forward to this day. This orange sky looks almost like an infant’s smile. How can someone overlook all this and look for something else? I don’t understand what it is with these people. God help them.” Tom listened to all of this and one cannot but discern the smile which mischievously lit up on his face. Suresh nudged him to at least acknowledge what he just said with so much passion. And this is what Tom said “Actually I might startle you here a bit. But this is what I think. There is not much of a difference between you and the love-stricken guy. Each of you is attached to something. In your case you are attached to the beautiful surroundings and the climate and he is attached to his love of his life. When he sees you riding your motorcycle with Jayashree who happens to be your former-lover turned wife on the pillion and you rant about how cruel the Chennai sun is, he is bound to say what you just said about him. ‘How can someone care about the sun when you know that the most special person on the planet is sitting right behind you and is almost bear-hugging you from behind. What an insensible person. Does this guy know about Love? Has he even tasted life? How can something as insignificant as the climate overshadow something as wonderful as Love? I don’t understand this senseless despair….’ The problem with both of you is that your happiness is not actually yours. Your happiness is bound by the fickleness of Mother Nature. As long as the days and night alternates so does your happiness. His happiness is no better. It is bound by the most capricious thing of all: a woman’s heart. Both of you will rise and fall as inevitably as the waves of the Marina. None amongst you is higher and none amongst you is lowlier. You both are standing at level ground. He is your confrere. I find it strange that you should pity him. If you pity him, go ahead. But I guess you should pity him and admire him in the same extent that you pity and admire yourself.”


With this the car came to a stop just outside the 13th Street at Anna Nagar. Tom and a seemingly shaken Suresh came out and walked silently towards their home. Tom said Goodbye to Suresh as Suresh turned left to go to the by lane which houses his home. The road was clean from the last night’s showers and on it were delicately drawn Kolams. One of the more exquisitely drawn Kolam had a beautiful hibiscus flower in the middle. Somehow it failed to move Suresh in spite of how poetically inclined he was when he left the office.

He reached his home and he saw his wife Jayashree open it. She had just had her morning bath and she was looking as virginal as the morning outside. As she leant over him and gave him his morning coffee Suresh whispered something to her ears which he had not told her for quite sometime after getting married. This is what he had said “I love you”.