What time is it?

"What time is it?", she asked. I got a bit startled by a sudden question from a ‘literal’ stranger on the tram. I turned to my side to answer but couldn't. It was her.

It's been 5 months since I got my new work. A new place as well. I used to live in the outskirts of Kolkata but have been living in the city ever since. A bit reserved, didn't have much to do outside of my employment. The year was coming to an end, had no one to share my time with or shall I say, 'waste my time with'. There wasn’t much to talk about with my co-workers, was never someone who could put on a facade to get into circles so here I was, walking into the streets of Kolkata in the cold weather, 'alone'.

The evening was darker than usual, as if the city was lulling me to get ‘one’ with my gloomy thoughts. The clouds were all covered up, waiting to pour down, but something held them back to hold a little longer, the same as me, as I was, trying my best to keep my emotions in check, as they were bursting to pour out through my eyes.

“Is it a bad place to be in my shoes?” I asked to myself.

“…yes, you heard it right!”

I turned around.

“buy 2 get 1 free!”

I exhaled, ignoring the street hawker, I moved ahead.

“There are worse places to be, aren’t there?” I asked myself again.

“How do I always end up here?”, I let out a big sigh and kept walking.

The evening was reaching its peak as was the winter market. I crossed over a street as a bicycle passed by ringing a bell. That sound was too shrill for my secluded ears.

“Hey, you know that ghazal by…”

I couldn’t hear the name as suddenly a group of teenagers ran by laughing hysterically.

“Where do these people get the energy from?” why can’t I let myself be free and dance around on my tiptoes shamelessly without any care of the world—more so of the one within than the one looking at me from afar?

I am at an age where I could be called ‘a young man’ by the society but I did not quite feel ‘young’. It wasn’t the weight of my responsibilities and certainly not the weight of my dense, curly hair, but it was something within, that was yelling at me to come out, that was shouting at me to break open, calling me a “coward”, something unnamed, yearning for something uncalled. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“What is it?”, I asked.

I let out a silent scream and asked myself again.

“What is it?

tell me,

tell me now,

I beg you,

TELL ME”.

“What is wrong with you?”,

someone yelled.

I looked up in a flash.

Pieces of glass were shattered right in front of me. The shopkeeper, who must be at my grandmother’s age if she were alive, after scolding her helper, put her hand on my left shoulder and asked,

“are you alright?”.

“Does she really want to know? Oh no! she’s just asking you because of the shattered glass, you fool, why do you alw…”.

“No, it’s absolutely alright”,

I said, after juggling through my thoughts, with the brightest smile I could muster up my energy for and walked away quickly.

Came out onto the streets to keep myself occupied but it was getting difficult to keep my thoughts in control, they were overflowing, and it was getting overwhelming by every passing second.

“I can’t keep it in”, I said to myself as the sky erupted in loud lightning as if me and the city sky were one at that moment, untamed by nature but forcing ourselves to hold just a little longer. I found an escape to keep my senses busy.

‘An old sweet shop in Kolkata’, sounded about right to me.

Entered in to choose from the various delicacies beautifully displayed. People were hurdling together even though there were some benches empty. There was a sea of colourful sweets to choose from. The sheer vibrancy brought a smile to my chapped lips. I was carrying an umbrella so after positioning it carefully to the side, I decided to eat at the shop, while ‘standing’, even though there were benches ‘empty’, onlooking outside. The wind started to catch pace. The lights across the street flickered and stopped at once to shine brightly. Kids in the shop started playing and circling around the empty benches, they were being very loud. The hustle and bustle around me were insinuating something, I couldn’t quite figure it out.

I had no reason to stay any longer so I picked up my umbrella and suddenly I heard something on the street.

I turned around.

There were sunflowers scattered around which seemed to have fallen from the bicycle and then my eyes shifted to the person who fell from it.

Picking the sunflowers delicately one by one, as if they were made of glass, stood a woman. ‘She’ was wearing a light blue khadi kurti set. She picked up the bicycle herself, politely declining anyone’s help, as her silver bangles dangled over her left wrist. I couldn’t see her face from afar. I tilted my head to the left to take a glimpse of this person but she turned around, I shifted a bit to my right and some person stepped in and stood right in front of me. A bit restless, I took some steps forward.

“What are you up to now?”, someone screamed at their phone.

I paused,

thinking, “what is this feeling? Why am I so restless? That too, to see a stranger’s face.

A bit worn out; I looked up. A sweet tiny water droplet fell into my eyes. I started rubbing my eyes and decided to go straight back ‘home’.

“I wish it were a home”,

I sighed and was about to turn around but instantly it started to pour down. I forgot I had an umbrella; I opened it after fidgeting for a while and the streets started to get cleared up, people were running to get shelter and I stopped in the midst.

On the street, right across me, there she was.

Her hair rustling and falling into place every time she stroked it with her hand. She stood there, a bit confused, beautiful eyes looking straight across beside me, behind me, but never at me.

She turned around with her bicycle to go get a shelter when suddenly I took her under my umbrella, my left shoulder got a bit soaked in rain. She looked around, the ends of her hair smoothly touched my face, she looked right at me, right into my eyes.

“Beautiful eyes”, I almost said it out loud.

She had a surprised look on her face, even I was surprised by my doing. I was standing aloof, so much so that I was almost completely drenched in rain. My lips were quivering, I wanted to say something but wasn’t able to get words out of my mouth.

“I’m so sorry for the way I came about, but you could take my umbrella if you wa….”, I was rehearsing what to say in my head, again and again.

“Hello?

Hey!

Excuse me?

Hi there?”, she said.

I came to my senses when she waved her hand in front of my face.

“What are you doing? Can’t you act properly for once? Say something, spEAK UP”.

“Yes?”, I said to her.

“Thank you but I won’t be needing your help. Bye!”, she said and went away.

Leaving behind her fragrance, her imprint with and of those eyes on me. She was here, under my umbrella, we talked, she smiled at me.

“Why am I smiling?”, it wasn’t even a conversation.

“Is this all I needed? Is this all I wanted? a moment, just a moment of bliss?!”.

“You are a fool and you know that!”,

someone said around me, to her partner, they laughed and walked away under one umbrella, holding each other by their arm, where no one’s left shoulder was soaking in rain. They disappeared in the rain as did the girl, ‘that’ girl.

I decided to get going, to walk away from that place to get myself distanced from what I was feeling, to pretend that I was fine, to act like things remained the same as before, that nothing has changed and why does things need to change? People meet strangers every day, even I do, being unsociable and taciturn, but I still do and it’s nothing special, it will fade away as did the girl in the dark, but did she have to?

Couldn’t she wait a little longer? Couldn’t the silence between us linger a little longer like petrichor?

“But, why did she have to leave though?”, I asked myself as I felt something beneath my feet. I picked it up. It was a sunflower. No, it was ‘the’ sunflower, one from the bunch she was carrying with herself, the bunch she was picking up when I first laid my eyes on her.

‘THIS’ one, the one in my hand?

she didn’t pick up.

My hand?

She didn’t pick up.

I was thinking about what was said and what couldn’t. It was a couple of days later that incident. Sitting in my workplace, looking outside through the glass window, but it wasn’t as beautiful as the shattered glass I saw that evening.

“Daydreaming again?”,

asked my co-worker. I got fuzzed, I couldn’t think of what to respond.

“Yeah, but you do that a lot don’t you?”,

he was wearing an earpiece.

I sighed.

It’s been a while. My ‘home’ wasn’t warming up well with me these days. I wasn’t really there. It didn’t seem welcoming. It was pushing me to go outside, to go to the same Chowringee street where I was that evening. The sunflower was safe with me. I kept it in a beautiful vase. It was the only thing brimming with vibrancy in my room. Her memory? The only thing brimming with beauty in my headspace.

“There was no time for me to even fall in love with her”, I said out aloud.

Love?

love?

did I say love?

NO, no I didn’t. I couldn’t. That word has never existed in my memory. It loves to hate me. It has never occurred before, can certainly never occur henceforth, right? RIGHT? But what if it did? Am I afraid? Am I afraid of love? Afraid to fall in love?

I went about my day with ‘nothing’ in mind. Days were passing by. “Might get a haircut”, I thought, while looking at my reflection on the glass door of a hair salon.

‘The glass’

‘The shattered one’

‘My heart’

‘A shattered one’

‘That day’

“Get going, for goodness’ sake!”,

someone yelled at me to move aside, as I was in their way.

“But, what about me?”,

I asked myself. I was in my way as well, how do ‘I’ move aside?

I looked up at my reflection again, right into my eyes. They were held by someone else’s once. For, once, just for once, I was taken. My thoughts, my mind, me? They were not present. For once, I was not in my way, but, someone else was. Something blue flashed up on the glass. I turned around in a second. I looked on my left, then on my right, then on my left again, but to no avail. My eyes, they were searching for something. My heart, it was hoping for something. I rubbed my eyes to erase something. It wasn’t raining. I put on my sunglasses to hide my view and stepped aside.

Looking at the sunflower, it dawned at me, a thought, a realization. I wrote a note but I didn’t send it. Beside the vase, a book was kept half-open. It was Kafka’s. I was reading it the other day. I picked it up, the first line that showcased itself was,

‘I’m a cage in search of a bird’.

“That sums it all, doesn’t it?”, I asked myself. My phone beeped.

“Yes, you just got free…...coupons”, a message arrived.

“But what if I don’t want it?”, I said. “This cage that I have built in me has served me well all these years and only a fool would give it up for something so cheap as freedom?

right?”

“YES. Of course.”

She is there. She is right in front of me, sitting on one of those empty benches. Again, the blue.

“Does she always wear blue?”, I asked myself. It must be her favourite colour.

“Well, it suits her and I would want to…”,

someone shoved me hard and I fell down. My eyes fell to the parched letter I was holding in my hands. The one that I wrote but didn’t send. “How did it escape my room?” I looked up, she was still there. I couldn’t see her face. I got up, fixed my countenance.

“You must give this to her”,

someone said to me with a huge smile, he lowered his forehead and kept staring at me. His eyes were piercing.

I shifted my glance.

It was unsettling.

He handed me a sunflower and disappeared.

It was dark. It was unusual. I heard a laugh. It was her. Her voice echoed through the sweet shop.

“Have you lost your mind?”,

someone asked looking me right in the eye.

“Uh..no..yes..what do you mean by that?”, I asked.

“You know you shouldn’t be doing this.”

“What?”, I asked.

“This, look at your face, you are being hopeful”, some other person said.

“For once, I want to be hopeful”

“Are you deserving of that?”, asked another one.

“I think...”

“No, he’s not”, someone yelled from the back.

Suddenly, they all started to gather around me, hiding my view of her. I was barely standing. Slowly and gradually, I could feel I was falling down. I hit the floor. All those people mounting at me. Looking at me with those protruding eyes. Some contained doubt whereas some contained disdain. They were belittling me. I was crouching. I felt helpless, I felt exposed. I screamed but nobody heard. I screamed again but to no avail and all at once, they all started laughing. I was shivering at their high-pitched laughs. I shaded my wet ruffled curly hair off my eyes. Those shrieks were piercing. Someone pushed me from the left, then from the right.

“Please, don’t, what is……”,

I couldn’t utter a word properly. It felt like someone held my neck from behind because someone did and there came another hand that covered my mouth too. In my blurred vision I could see the blue passing by, it shined brightly and then vanished.

I fell down further;

it’s like the floor broke. I was happy that it did.

I was falling.

I was finally happy.

I was smiling but not for long. I was waving my hands abruptly, trying to reach out for support, something to hold on to but there was nothing. I was breathing heavily. There was void.

“What is this?

Why is this happening to me?

What am I in this world? A second-class being?

Is this how I am supposed to live? Is this living at all?

This won’t do anymore.

I want a closure.

End it now, now.

I said NOOWWW.”

I screamed and got up. I was panting, short of breath. I got up from my bed, was scared, still shivering. While drinking water, I saw the sunflower through the reflection of the glass in my hand. It was still there.

“Why won’t it die?”,

I said angrily. I ran towards it, held in in my hand.

“Why are you giving me hope?

Why are you keeping it alive in me?

Why woN’T YOU DIE?”,

I screamed at the top of my lungs.

That was the loudest cry I had ever let out.

I threw the flower on the floor and crushed it with my feet.

“This chapter is forever closed now.”

Tears fell from my eyes. I brushed it off and faded away in my sleep.

It was almost 8 o’clock in the morning and I was running late to catch the tram to work. Had few minutes left to make it time. I ran and ran, was struggling for breath till I was finally on board.

The last few days were tumultuous,

— or maybe months or a year?

Who knows?

Who cares? At least I don’t!

For once, I hoped I could be happy, but that hope, once again, turned out to be a mock at me. “How could I ever think of being surrounded by something called happiness? It’s not on brand with what my whole life has been. Still, I tried to dream but why? Anyway, it’s all over now”, I smiled and said to myself.

“It’s all dead now, whatever there was left in me, a little spark? is now dead and thank god for that!”, I smiled widely and looked up at the ceiling…

“Hello?

Hey!

Excuse me?

Are you there?”

I came to my senses…

“…was I reminiscing this whole time?

How much time has passed?”, I wondered.

She was looking at me.

I packed all my emotions…

Inemotions…

time lost —

time spent waiting,

cursing,

hoping,