Beyond the Fencing
She stopped her unbuttoning of blouse and took my glance from head to toe and then tore me apart by the mild whispering of her words, as her stare wasn’t enough, “Sahib paisa lagega, chahe karo ya na karo..”
While standing at the railway platform and inhaling those first few breathes of Pune, my veins got pumped up with the exhilaration of new city to explore and strangers to befriend with. I strapped my bag to my shoulders and gave an upturn to the already upturned moustaches and headed towards the taxi stand. With arm-length shoulder to shoulder chest distance, pumped with adrenaline, anyone had guessed my newly acquired tag of Punite. Reaching the outer circle of station, I called an auto-rickshaw, in bargain the driver spared my wallet but not the cash in it, boarded it and with sparkly charm of dusky Pune bid my adieus to hollering uninterested crowd and embankment rested acting-blind beggars and honest dogs. Honest in bestowing “I-don’t-give-a-damn-and-will-only-wag-if-got-anything-to-eat” expression.
Passed car after car, signal after signal, alley after alley and then the breath started to go on its normal pace. With sheen of anonymity in eyes I went by numerous buildings which left me with gasp of wondering. While I was busy with acclimatizing my eyes with Pune locals and giving feel to the driver that I am full ears to him, I never realized that when the 20 km distance between station and my hostel, Shanti-Niketan, got diluted and there I was standing with empty pockets and grumbling stomach (half with hunger and half with unknown), with no idea what to expect next. Slowly the evening eased down and so me and my settlement arrangements.
Dawn came and gone, did some paper work and all those interested things which the moment you pen down get all uninterested. I was enjoying my stay at Pune. Classes of my course have begun and with umpteen number of introduction sessions bunch of us were quite familiar with each other, in fact familiar to the extent that now we remembered each other’s intro backwards. Month passed. Than two and before even recalling the first breath of Pune, semester one got concluded. Once strapped anonymity was now has been degraded to monotony.
Once which seems a “once upon a fairytale start”, now was getting strangled and choked throat on the hands of monotony on routine basis. The sheen had long gone and now dusk only brings the pain of thought, to spend the night alone. Some nights were regular while other drags me on road to walk past my regular fencing and breath some extended moments of unflinching solitude. Where one day the fencing is just ‘around the corner’ turn, on another it moved further 500 yards. With more the distance, gets more reap of solitude.
What blood to Jackal’s mouth does same this road-to-nowhere roaming did to me and it made me to crave for more. Sometimes at night I took my bike and drove miles away from the fencing and then just randomly pulling over on high way with no traffic and just me lying on road under the hood of stars with silence spread like a blanket all over the surroundings, lying there for, which now seems, eternity.
Slowly and steadily tides of realization started hitting the shores and late but the awakening came upon me that, it was not me who’s craving for the idea of aloofness but it’s the deep down buried fire of penning which is struggling for fresh air of thoughts and the strangling which I earlier talked about, was not of fairytale but was of pen and paper of the fairytale writer.
Before the choking get to the conclusion part, I hit one clouded afternoon, the doorstep of a prostitute. Fun was not the motive. But to know how to live with the strangled ropes around the neck while pretending everything is ok. Just like that, those three simple words, “Everything is ok”, and whom to know better and live with it better than a prostitute.
I knocked the door hesitantly and the moment I heard the footsteps behind that door, I froze.
A million thoughts crossed my mind that time. I was not bothered about the “What ifs’?” of the enigma called society, but the question which was eating me out was, “How?”
“How to explain her, my need?”
Mine need to fuel my inner, which has long forgotten to inhale hope and perspire the beads of monotony. Sound of unbolting of door made mine knees weak. I was standing their but unable to move, I was standing their but unable to feel. And then the door opened and there she was standing with full poise and confidence. I felt a need to borrow some but that will only help the purpose temporarily.
It almost took me a decade to clear my throat and build up enough of words, confidence boat has sailed a long away, to utter my requirement to her. She was waiting there for demand, the usual one, for which she is always ready with an abrupt reply. The first standard reply, “Who sent you?”
On seeing my inability to word my sentences, she shifted aside a bit from the door and made place for me to go in.
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