In the rain

I so curse it when it rains only during the times I deliberately drop the idea of taking a raincoat. Who could have assumed from observing the morning brightness that it will start pouring out of the blue. And now, I was all drenched and was not going to office in that condition. Driving slowly along the edges of the pedestrian way, a small tea stall with a little shade of thatched roof appeared like some spell of Dumbledore. I parked my bike on the road and ran beneath the shade and ordered a cutting chai. The worst thing about being alone and idle is over thinking. Trust me, it consumes every inch of your mental energy. Yet, even knowing everything, I gradually got tele-ported into my notions of life, future, job, journey, family, savings bla bla bla...

"Didi, you too can have a sip of my tea?" The voice of the tea stall boy intruded my visions and finally I came back to the world. I didn't even realise when on the earth this charming lady of middle age entered the shade and sat next to me on the bench. Again I cursed myself for being so lost always and after few more moments of silence, I broke it. "Hi! On the way to work?" Though a dumb question, yet I asked. "Oh, yep, yes!" She replied but with hesitation. "Same here. Anyways, I am Rajiv." "Hi!, I am Swati." And the great chatting began....

"I am an IT engineer, work for Infotech. I stay nearby. Was already running late and now this, the icing on the cake." She giggled. "I work for travel company. Now I too think I shall return home for I can't bear the chilled breeze of AC." "So, are you seeing anyone?" Asking this and I suddenly blushed, perhaps too soon to ask, "No I mean I don't want your angry boyfriend or fiance at my doorstep tomorrow morning for flirting with a charming lady" I pathetically tried to be humorous. "Not yet!" She replied calmly. "Oh I see! Me neither." We got our glasses of tea. Sipping carefully, she continued, "Life's got it's own twists and turns, it's own timings and philosophies and own equations and solutions. We really can't fight just for the sake of our own sentiments." Quite at a loss of words, I anyhow tried blabbering, "Are we talking about one sided love?" "May be. I mean yes. It is really complicated. How you can suddenly develop the capabilities to handle the friendship with utmost care and at the same time be stupid enough to feel insecure and yet don't express anything." "True!" I said, "I believe but that is the time when you actually start understanding life, understand yourself, at least have an idea about what exactly you don't want in your life, makes the elimination of imperatives easy I guess." "But how can you exactly fight the demons of your own over thinking and expectations, rather that deadly addiction of only that one person?" "Oh god help me!" I cried within myself, how could she have known that I am the worst person to talk about over thinking. My heartbeat was louder than the thunderbolts. I stole a second to observe that the water started to stagnate on the road. She was waiting for me to reply. Sighing deeply, I continued, "We don't need to fight everything, do we? I mean it just becomes a part of your lifestyle just like any other habits of eating, drinking or sleeping. We learn to live with it. Sometimes we express, other times we hide. We just adjust our feet with the rhythm of the musical equations. Sorry for my pathetic analogy though!" She laughed for a moment. No doubt, she had the sweetest smiles of all. "You are right. I agree. We learn to balance. But in the midst of adjusting and balancing, when hearts get clogged up at the middle of the night. how you do really comfort yourself by ignoring your emotions?" A serious question now. It surely reminded me of my one sided love days and self obsessing nights. "Then you wait for the other person to get hooked or hitched with the third person until you get immune to the fact that only you belong to yourself and no one else can." A minute of silence and we both busted into laughing. Our laughter got merged into the reverberations of lightning and thunder. We didn't even notice it was almost an hour now that we were there like this. Calming ourselves, she asked, "So does that mean you too had a love story?" "Yep, she got married and now waiting for the time when that love will happen for twice." I winked. She smiled. "Did I bore you with my Q&A session?" "Oh no, not at all, who else could have thought of getting such an interesting conversation in the middle of this frustrating downpour at the wee hours. And trust me, you are an amazing person I have had met." Silence sheathed us again. And we gazed at the rain for how long we didn't know.

A loud honking on the road broke into my flashback yet again. I tried peeping through the window. "Kakkars and Gupta's are screaming over parking places. Nothing new, don't worry." Swati came narrating the scene. "You want some tea, I am making some." "Rains can cancel conferences but not tea schedule, yes ma'am one for me please." I smirked. She made a funny face and went into the kitchen.

Yes, life has it's own philosophies and it's own timings. Yet another rain, but I found someone to accompany me in my overthinking, to sit always beside me for that cup of tea and talk about infinite notions.... In the rain!!!