Chapter 1 - Part 2

“Need water?” Dr. Padhye asked Saubodh caringly.

Subodh nodded. Dr. Padhye ordered his assistant over the intercom to get water for Subodh.

Dr. Padhye was once again attempting to unravel that hidden spot in Subodh’s mind. The one which Subodh had locked away into the chest of deliberate obliteration. Despite Dr. Padhye’s several attempts to make Subodh speak about it, Subodh held on to it without disclosing even a wee bit of it to Dr. Padhye. Subodh’s reservation towards revealing it had started pinching by now. It was worrying Dr. Padhye more because he strongly believed that the true reason behind Subodh’s anger attacks lied somewhere in its womb. He wanted to unearth it today by any means. Only that could save Subodh from proceeding towards lunacy. He was trying the hardest today. And his stressful efforts were exhausting Subodh. Dr. Padhye realised this and decided to give it a short break.

Dr. Padhye’s assistant entered the room holding a glass of water. She stood before Subodh, smiled and handed over the glass to him. Subodh took it and hurriedly gulped down the water in the glass. It had a light unrecognisable flavour to it. Subodh avoided pouring the rest of it down his throat. He kept it aside and reclined on the chair.

“Subodh... Is there something that you strongly regret about?...”

The question hit Subodh’s ears shaking him out of the stupor that was slowly seeping into him. As he reclined on the chair after sipping water, he felt more relaxed. He felt his body loosen up, with each of his muscle unwinding itself and spreading ripples of comfort through him. He had been holding his body and mind within his steadfast control yet. Slowly, they were slipping out of his grip.

He was slowly sliding into a state of weightlessness of mind and body. Dr. Padhye’s question suddenly restrained his flight, pulling him down to the thorny bed of reality.

“I don’t think so...” Subodh blurted out. He wanted to say ‘NO’. A firm No! He wasn’t regretting anything. He knew it will. Yet the question made him growingly uncomfortable. It pricked him in thousand odd places within his conscience. Reminiscences began grumbling in their places to break free from the concrete layer of contentment under which they were forcefully buried. Subodh had lost his control over their uprising. He was trying hard to press them down. But they seemed to be charged up with colossal bout of energy. His strength was falling weak before their force. His limbs had lost all the might that was needed to hold them back. His attempt to keep them buried, failed repeatedly. Finally, he faced a burst of endless energy like a nuclear fission and he was blown away by its force.

“Maybe something from the past... that you might have forgotten over the time...” Dr. Padhye delved further.

Subodh wanted to regain control. The part of his mind which was fighting against this outburst resonated a line aloud, like granting him a weapon to combat this eruption.

“No, Yoga cannot heal anything...Yes... but it can help you regain control”

Subodh sat before the gushing flow of aching memories. He focussed his attention on his breath. In-out, in-out. The memories continued to surge like rampant waters emanating out of a broken dam. But the panic that had left Subodh feeble, began to subside. A mild flame of calmness lit up within him. He could detach himself from the chaos that the escaped memories had created. He stood aside on the bank of aloofness and began to observe them.

His days of loneliness surfaced before him. The ones that made him feel meaningless and dejected. A failure was constantly on his trace. He had failed in the Higher Secondary Exam. The failure followed him wherever he went. He didn’t go home. He couldn’t face his face with that label of failure everyday. He roamed on streets aimlessly. He sat at alone at places isolated from his surroundings. The early teenage, the unrest, the disownment, everything came back to him. He saw it silently. Though he has overcome this failure later in his life, it did leave scratches on his mind which would never heal. It was a proof that he was never too far from failure. That, one wrong step, and he would go crashing down to it.
The followed the memories of relentless efforts that Subodh had put in to wipe the word ‘fail’ off his forehead. But the impressive mark-sheet that he managed to gain in his second attempt could not put together his shattered dream of entering an engineering college. He felt his heart sink. His breath found it difficult to pass through his throat. Moisture gathered within the borders of his eyes. But he separated himself from these changes and stayed unbudged by them. He remained rock-solid in their presence.

Chained with them came the memories of years of graduation. The years when he lived almost like an ascetic, dedicating all his time to nothing else but academics. Scores were the first and the last thing on his mind. He sidelined everything else for it. Even a girl who showed signs of attraction towards him. And he didn’t regret anything of it. Somehow, in that peace and calmness of these years, Subodh observed that there was a restlessness which subsisted within. Subodh had painstakingly restrained it inside him throughout that period. He had lived it like an ordeal, just to avenge his own failure. Like retribution against his own self.

Finally there was redemption! He had managed to earn a decent score and an entry into one of the top business schools in the country. There was nothing to stop him. He was away from him home, and the new city had a lot to offer. Quite a lot in spite of not being on nation’s metropolitan list like his home city had been. An established corporate hub of the nation, the city had transformed itself to absorb all the disposable income and non-disposable strain that MNCs were paying new age young Indian professionals with. He broke all the bonds he had tied himself up in. He set himself free to relish both the dark and bright sides of life, which he had been shunning all this while. He had discovered peace wrapped in frivolity and several ways to attain it.

Yet, somewhere deep within, remained a blister which continued to twinge. Even now, he yearned for acceptance. The acceptance which he had lost with his failure. Even though it was a distant memory now, its wound still persisted. And Subodh’s quest for its cure still continued. Amidst all the action, there would be moments when Subodh would sit alone, blankly trying to convince himself that wasn’t alone. Amongst all those with whom he regularly lost his senses, everybody with whom he shared his astuteness, every woman he woke up with and every rival he competed with, he lived moments tainted with staunch lonesomeness. And he would yearn for the cure.

It was about then when he literally bumped into this girl. He walked out of the pub dazed, looking for his motorcycle. He went following the boards to the parking lot, separating himself from his herd. With the world shaking around him, he located his motorcycle in the parking lot. As he went closer to it, he found it difficult to believe his eyes. He took a closer look to assure himself of what he was seeing. He stood on the edge between belief and hallucination. Many things had entered his system when he was inside the pub that could project such images on his mind. But if he had to see it, he would have seen it earlier. He moved a step closed, opened his eyes wide and looked fixedly at the scene. It was true!
-----
A girl had passed out on his motorcycle. She slept peacefully with her head rested on his fuel tank, hugging the tank like a pillow. Her curly hair lay open, spread on her arms holding the tank. The bright white sleeveless top she wore, contrasted her duskiness, making it appear more desirable. Her bag was lying on the floor next to her, spilling out all its contents. Liner, diary, pen, comb, chocolate wrappers, A book, two CDs, a lip balm, used tissue papers, a hair band, a cute little money purse, a music player, bottles of nail polish, a happy meal toy and countless other things. It seemed as if an ocean had emptied itself out of her bag. He made his way carefully tip-toeing through them and reached his motorbike. He was clueless about what to do next. For the first time in past few months he felt a bit awkward to touch a woman. He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t move his hand to touch hers and wake her up. He looked around. He saw a small bottle of water that had fallen out of her bag. He picked it up and splashed some water on her face.

“Avi??” She said in a half awake voice.

“Excuse me Ma’m... you have crashed on my motorbike...” Subodh said aimlessly. He hoped for her to register what he said. But he was sure wasn’t in a state to do so.

“Drop me to my room na Avi... it’s late...” she mumbled and fell asleep on the tank once again.

This time Subodh emptied the bottle on her face.

“Stop it Avi !!!” She woke up almost screaming on Subodh. Subodh took a step back. She woke up looking around cluelessly, out of her stupor. She noticed her milieu and a mixture of astonishment, gloom and guilt flashed on her face. It made her look innocent. Like a child who had woken up at a place it didn’t remember sleeping off at. Sleepily, she moved the locks of her curly hair off her face.

It was for the first time that Subodh saw her complete face. He was mesmerised for a moment by it. Her features almost struck Subodh with their sharpness. It took him whole two minutes and thirty six seconds to get over her and utter his next sentence.

“It’s my bike Ma’m...” he said with a gentle stammer, tongue-tied by her aura.

She looked at Subodh’s motorbike for a moment in disbelief and then looked at him apologetically.

“I’m sorry”, she said with a pitiful face as she struggled to get herself off his motorbike. Subodh was too captivated by her to even utter an ‘It’s okay.’

She sat down and started gathering all the marvels that has escaped out of her bag. Subodh sat on his haunches to help her with the task.

“Thanks!” She said with a gentle smile. If Subodh could control time with a remote control, he would’ve paused that moment. Even in that brief moment, that smile had caused countless waves of bliss to run through every atom of Subodh’s existence. He just wanted to freeze it and stare at it till the world came to an end.

But life isn’t structured to provide you with simple pleasures like these on a prolonged basis. The sea of her little belongings flowed back into the cavity her bag. Subodh endlessly stared at her as he helped her to gather them. With the magical intuitive powers that women possess, she realised several times that Subodh was endlessly staring at her. But the moment she looked at him to catch him doing that, he immediately looked away dodging her impulses. It went on like an unspoken game between the two till she picked up the last hair-clip that had hidden itself near the motorbike’s tyre and dropped it in her bag.

“Sorry again...” she said ruefully, “my friend has the same bike...so I thought this was his bike...” she spoke groggily.

“No problem...it happens so sometimes... I once crashed on the footpath!” Subodh said with a smile and an intention of sparking off a continuous conversation.

She just smiled and started toying with the mobile phone in her hand. Next, she raised the had holding the mobile, and stuck it to her ear. Subodh had learnt from his days gone by, that a girl with a mobile phone stuck to her ear, has high chances of being already taken.

Unwillingly, Subodh went near his motorbike. He dismounted it off its stand and settled himself on it. Till then, he realised that she was frantically trying to call someone and either the person on the opposite side was not picking up, not concerned or was simply disconnecting her call. Her rising desperateness and the increasing fervour with which she was pressing the buttons on her mobile phone were a proof of it.

As Subodh kick-started his motorbike, an unexplained stroke of inspiration smacked him almost like a lightening. It filled him up to the brim with instantaneous courage. He turned towards her. She was hysterically looking for something in her bag.

“Any problem?” He asked her like a knight in shining armour who had come across a damsel in distress.

“No!” She replied like a damsel in distress who cared a fuck about this knight.

Disappointed yet again, Subodh was about to set his vehicle in motion when she called him.

“Excuse me...”

“Yeah?” Subodh turned back expectantly.

“Have you got a cigarette?” She asked.

“Yes” Subodh checked his pockets. He found a packet in the upper pocket of his jerkin. He opened it. There was just one cigarette left in it. “But I just have one... And I won’t get one on the road back....”

“Aah... I’m sorry... ” she said with a tinge of disappointment.

“No no... you have it... I’ll manage...” He handed over the packet to her.

“Ohh... it’s a strong one...” She declared as she pulled the cigarette out of the packet.

“Yeah...” Subodh was a bit perplexed.

“Here...” She held out the packet to return it to him.

“What happened?” Subodh stopped his bike and pushed it backwards to come closer to her.

“I don’t smoke the brand” She said in her drunken casualness.

“Okay...” Subodh took back the packet and thrust it in his pocket.

Subodh kick started his bike again when she called him again.

“Excuse me...” she said coyly.

“Yeah?”

“Can I have the cigarette?... ” she stammered a bit as she uttered her request.

Subodh smiled. Somehow, he had found it cute. He gave the packet back to her.

“Can you please light it up for me?... I mean I can’t have the entire thing... If you could share...” She came up with another request with equal demureness.

Subodh was more than happy to accept her request. He pulled out his lighter and lit up the cigarette for her.

“Take a few puffs...” She instructed him.

Subodh took a few quick puffs and handed the cigarette over to her. She pulled a few puffs while trying to call someone again from her mobile phone. Dejected with the failure to get through, she turned to Subodh and passed on the cigarette to him.

“Anything wrong?” Subodh took a chance once more, taking a puff from the cigarette and passing it on to her.

“Actually...my friend was supposed to be here and drop me home... but... somehow he isn’t here... so you know...I’m a bit worried...” She spoke warily.

“May I help?” Subodh gathered all his guts and asked.

“No... I’ll manage...” She replied a bit reluctantly.

“Are you sure?” Subodh had newly learned hard-selling in his classes.

“Mmm... yeah...” She said indecisively.

Subodh saw the scope in her hesitancy to convince her.

“I can drop you in that case...” He played his cards.

She stood silent for a while.

“I mean... at this time... how are you gonna go back?” Subodh’s confidence in his offer grew stronger.

Few moments of silence passed by. Subodh was looking at her in anticipation. She displayed clear signs of giving a thought to his proposition. Yet, he was quite unsure about the decision she would take.

She tried calling her friend unsuccessfully once more and then turned to Subodh.

“Well...can you drop me till the Rajiv Nagar junction?” she asked him.

---

The monsoon had just wound up its business for the year and winter was gathering in. Winds had acquired a slight chill to tickle the hearts it touched. Subodh rode on the empty roads of the city cutting through them. The winds did not of course pardon him for that. Harsh did they get as he moved tearing them apart. They tried their best to freeze Subodh’s spine. But this time they had no chance to defeat him. It was impossible for them to surpass the shield he bore. Even the deadliest of storms has bowed down before its strength. Ad it had wrapped it arms around Subodh, resting its head on his back.

“I forgot to ask your name...” Subodh shouted loud enough to overcome the firing of his motorbike. He couldn’t turn back to communicate with the dame who sat evasively on his pillion seat. She had fitted her purse between the two of them to maintain a deliberate gap between them and avoid even a slightest of physical contact.

“Kritika...” She shouted in his ear.

“Ritika?” He still had doubts.

“Kritika...K... R... I... T... I... K... A...!!” She shouted aloud, again in his ear.

“And what do you do here?”

“Studying!”

There began a sort of shrieking duel between the two.

“What?” He asked.

“Studying!!” She went louder.

“I mean what are you studying?” He reframed his question.

“Commercial art!” She replied.

“Ohh... artist...” He exclaimed.

“Naah.... commercial artist... there is a difference...” She snapped back.

“I don’t understand...” He jeered.

“What do you do?” It was her turn now.

“Same... studying!” He replied.

“What?”She interrogated further.

“MBA!” He yelled with a dash of pride.

“Oh! That’s why you don’t understand the difference between an artist and a commercial artist...” She gave it back.

Subodh was used to awestruck replies like “Oh really?!...That’s great!”, “Wow!” or “Awesome!”. But he was completely unprepared for this sort of response. It took several moments of silence for him regain his stature. In the meantime he desperately looked another topic with which he could resurrect the conversation. Finally, he found one after some twelve minutes thirty five seconds.

“Are you a localite?” He shouted.

There was no response. He turned back to check if she was still there. She was.

“Hello?!” He tried to make himself heard.

No luck this time too. It bothered Subodh a bit for a moment. Because next moment pushed him slowly into a spell of bliss.

He felt her head gently rest on his back. Her delicate palms first fixed themselves on his shoulders. As she pressed her head on his back, her palms separated themselves from his shoulders and he felt her warm hands wrap themselves around his chest. Just the way they had held the fuel tank of his motorbike some time ago. If the tank had feelings, it wouldn’t have let them lose their grip on itself.

This wasn’t the first time Subodh was hugged by a chic while riding the motorbike. But this time he felt something different about it. He wasn’t having his usual hard-on as Kritika did so. It was some other feeling.

Her touch was magical. The one they call ‘The Healing Touch’. Never before Subodh felt this sense of completeness within him. He realised that the restless which he always suffered from, had pacified in her embrace. No feminine touch or relationship had ever been able to do so.

He rode in silence, slowly losing himself to her grip in bits and pieces. She, in her oblivion, was seeping into him slowly. He was experiencing an ingenious fusion occurring between him and her. Subtle and unspoken. Maybe he had found a cure to his ailment.

He rode fast, making his way through the winds which were equipped to chill his bones. But her warmth kept them away from him. This was the warmth he had been yearning for since years, he felt. He could see the word ‘failure’, which distressed him for every second of his living life, being wiped off by her cheek rubbing on his back. His conscience was setting itself free from the clutches of that word as she sunk deeper into him, pressing her body against him. He could see revival ahead of him.

There was a flash of blindening light and a huge sound that reverberated through his entire body. It shook the skies above and shuddered lands far and wide. He saw a flash of colours pass by like a magnanimous brush-stroke. And everything dissolved into darkness.

Subodh impetuously opened his eyes...

***
Subodh impetuously opened his eyes...

He found himself in a plush air-conditioned room. The place seemed similar to him. It took him a few moments to realise where he was. He looked around. He found Dr. Padhye sitting beside him, staring at his face. Subodh straightened himself up on the chair.

“That’s enough for today I suppose...” Dr. Padhye said, releasing Subodh from the grip of his eyes.

As Subodh grappled back with his transit from the trance to consciousness, he reached out for the water remaining in the glass. Dr. Padhye stopped him by holding his hand over the glass. Subodh looked at him quizzed. Dr. Padhye called up for another glass of water. Subodh was unable to decipher his act.

“I’m sorry... you weren’t speaking up...” Dr. Padhye clarified.

Subodh looked at the glass of water with astonished eyes.

The assistant entered the room with a fresh glass of water. Subodh stood up from the chair. Before the assistant reached him, he went to her, picked up the glass of water and poured it on the carpet below. The assistant stood dumbstruck by his act. Dr. Padhye kept on looking intently at him as he did this and strode towards the door.

“Subodh...” Dr. Padhye called out when Subodh reached the door. Subodh turned back.

“We are almost there... It’ll just take a little bit of more efforts from you now... If you want to put them that is... Do come... ”

Subodh opened the door and left the room without a word.

“He’ll come back...” Dr. Padhye said to his assistant staring at the door.

-------- x --------

End of Chapter 1.