(Redacted version of this article was published on THE HIMALAYAN TIMES dated 24th May 2016)
In this
complicated internet world, crush can be as simple as this, as it unfurls:
To
start with, I would like to end the need of some of my foreign friends to
google the definition of Pani Puri. It is, also called golgappa, a spicy street
snack popular in several regions of Indian Subcontinent.
If
it was one of balmy days with the sun happily glowing plus a dusty lively
desert, then the evening was more appropriate to be called as the dusk. The sun
would be setting down to the darker womb of Western Mountain, camels returning
back to shelter, powdering sandy dust all over man’s height. Contrarily, here I
was. No sun rays, overcast late afternoon, no dust visible, just men and women;
some—well, especially one!—a beautiful girl.
Girl said as to cover her gender, she was anyway a school girl. Have I
become a sick gone out of my mind to get a crush on a kiddy? No. Nature has
bestowed terrific exquisiteness and I perceived one, I was unable to keep it
long on myself. And finally here I go.
She
first cropped up into my spectacle the very evening when the bus was
overcrowded and I was perched with difficulty on its rooftop, with my hands
turned back holding the rusted–metal railings; buttock on the sheer sharpness
of one of them. It’s ironic that most of my stories has been framed on the bus
that has to be overcrowded, many people come across your field of vision and
one of them happens to be your favorite face, of course of a lady: nah, stories
these days are never interesting and hence not read if there is not a lady in
it, at its center of gravity! It might be because the public bus takes many
people in and throws many of them out in stations with the separate
physiognomies and background stories. And by the flick of space and time their
stories meet mine. By the time the bus is parked finally, your dream face
always disappears where you don’t know. Simple, because as the bus is jam-packed,
one person you rarely care about would be missing in a tussle and rush.
Secondly, your attention is caught by a known person or a group that you cannot
avoid talking to. This condition should be often when the bus is plying in a
regular route in your vicinal town.
There
are these some wonderful things, that you just can’t avoid looking at. Any man
has a weakness; many say that it is the woman. I do not believe this
absolutely. Partly it may be true, and sometimes even not at all. Yes it must
be a major station; the bus would be stopping quite long. Not long enough to go
for a pee and have some snacks though. Some of the occupants were thriving to
get off making ways through the crowd, poking their knees and elbows sidewise. It
would be easily imaginable when one sees the struggle between people just off
the bus-door. She was blithe and unmindful of the world around her. Yards afar
from the bus, she was just wandering her eyes in the pots of grams and peas and
chilies and lemonades and bhujia and finally the jug where all these things are
jiggled and spiced up with a bamboo stick by a snotty street vender.
Ah!
That giggle. The group of girls, she included, titters, the sound of which
amplifies as their recipe is on the verge of being served. Looking down from
the balcony I could sense her itch to have all the sour and juicy of the pani
puri. How can a person be so nonchalant?
How can a girl be so cute and alluring? All those chirpy girls faced westwards
thumped down their feet as they looked in desperation at the contents of the
mug being waggled. The clumping gave a pleasant melody to such a connoisseur of
puerile beauty like me. The girls blissfully gave a big sigh of victory as the hawker
poured down the chana chatpat on a paper sheet. He handed them four different cardboard-cut
spoons. And then started a spectacular cut-throat
game of shoveling and gulping what was the mixture of grams, peas and suchlike.
In moments afterwards when the game was over, their eyes met as if to
communicate the unfulfilled hunger shared by all. The girl in context whips her
open hands up and down, then down and up—with her tongue protruded out—hissing
and wheezing. Sometimes, yah, chilies have so positive effect that you can
observe the spontaneity of actions all in the natural flow. They then had a
whip-round and it appeared from the distance that with the remaining money they
were to buy pani puri, fried puff-pastry balls.
No
sooner they were slurping the flavor of pani puri in a row, oblivious of the
surround, our vehicle blared and ejected thick exhaust. The girl took a glimpse
at the bus, pani puri stirring on her mouth, and then its roof, when suddenly our
eyes crossed. The vehicle was on the move, she gave that careless look on her
part, but which came to me as a transcendental arrow. For them, buses come and go;
they never stop craving their desire. They might not have even imagined how
many bus-passengers are bewitched each passing day with their happy-go-lucky
style. They had to return home, but who the heck cares if there was Pani puri?
Even
today when I see girls stacking along a pani puri stall the unheeding image of
that tiny girl dances in my very own mindset. Something is just never to be
perished, indeed some memories.
©Adhikary Rabindra 2016
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