"What would you like to have?" he asked, even before she settled into the chair opposite to him.
"One masala dosai" she replied, surprised at how he never questioned her for being late. She had to fight out her urge to justify the situation, lest he should assume that she was the late-comer.
She watched him as he went to the counter to place their order, his jet black shoes ticking on the wooden flooring of the café with each step. She noticed that the lace on his right shoe had loosened, making the longer of the threads to flip up and down as he walked. He wore navy blue pants to match the white and blue striped shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbow exposing his tanned hands laden with short hair lazily slanted to one side. The back of his pants were slightly crumpled in the middle due to the buckling of the knees inside.
Five minutes into their dinner and except for the sounds of the crisp dosa crumbling in her mouth and the sipping of tea, they were silent. There were occasional secret glances at each other through the corner of their eyes which went unnoticed by the other.
"I'd be leaving to Boston for a month" he said finally.
The words stung her. She realized, for the first time in her life how words uttered, could hurt a million fold stronger than those on print. She could feel her heart - another first in her list of firsts. It throbbed harder, faster and it blocked her throat, making it almost impossible to gobble down the piece of dosa that was cracking between her teeth.
A faint 'oh' was all that she could muster herself to say in the midst of the chaos that his words created in her – the 'oh' sounding more like 'Should you really go?' than an element of surprise.
All these emotions that struck her upon his utterance of these words confused her. She had never envisaged that she would miss someone, especially in real life. The only times she had felt anything close to such a feeling was when she was just a couple of pages from finishing up a novel - she would be caught in a maze of curiosity to know the ending, conflicted by the fear of missing the characters who had been a part of her virtual life for the past few days.
She wondered if he felt the same - if he would miss her as much as she would, if she would still be in his thoughts even though they were miles away, if he would count down the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes when they would be together again in the same café, sitting across a coffee stained wooden table.
Anyone could guess that their acquaintance probably began in a library.
One cold Friday evening of December, they had discovered that they were colleagues, when he returned to her her office ID card that he had found on one of the library shelves.
"Hi. I'm Rajan. I believe this card is yours." He had said, flashing the ID and analyzing her face to confirm if it matched the one on the card.
Rajan – the name struck her with a familiarity that she detested - a character in one of her favourite novels who sold his own children for money. The author had portrayed Rajan so powerfully that she had developed an urge to slap him across his face if she ever got a chance to meet him. In short, she hated Rajan and hence the name. But today, there was this gentleman, sharing the same name and looking straight into her eyes as if he had had an unblemished past.
Looking up at him for the first time, she noticed that an identical tag hung from his neck. Her ID card shifted from his hands to hers as she whispered a forced thank you to him, pitying herself for having to use those words to someone she despised, even if just the name.
"We work in the same company as well huh?" He had continued cheerfully, holding up his own ID card and unaware of all the thoughts that were screaming in her mind.
"I guess so." She said, sounding skeptical.
"Hope to see you around then, Msss…?" He dragged, waiting to hear her utter her name even though he had already read it off her ID card.
"Rashmi" She had finished, slowly turning her back to him.
Since their first meeting, they had often bumped into each other at the library, office corridors, café and the bus stop. However, it was Rajan who always initiated their conversation. Occasionally Rashmi would apologize to herself for equating him to some fictitious character who shared nothing in common with Rajan other than the name. It troubled Rashmi and hence as a matter of self defense, she began to accept Rajan's rare invitations for lunch, dinner or sometimes even for a short tea break. The relationship grew on them and their meetings eventually turned into a habit which either of them couldn't deny themselves the joy of.
"So… when are you leaving?" she asked, after a lengthy one minute silence which took a lot of courage to break.
"Tomorrow." He said, matter-of-factly.
It hit her harder this time. Like sand accumulating at the funnel of an hour glass and inevitably falling prey to gravity, her stomach sank, deeper and deeper into emptiness. The unfairness of the timeline that was left before he would leave made her feel inferior – stupid, that she had assumed and taken for granted, the place she held in his hierarchy of friends.
Twenty four hours, or lesser, she thought.
Their conversation continued as he briefly went through his itinerary with her, pausing in between only to take a sip of his tea or to answer her doubts.
"What would you bring back for me?" She asked him the next evening, when he called to say goodbye.
"Your heart." He replied, without the slightest hint of hesitation.
P.S.: Happy Valentines' day :)
