Chapter 4:

After the Egyptian pharaoh quit the stage, it was Anila's turn to lecture, but she proved to be briskier and to the point, giving just a brief but all-inclusive note on each client and their specific instructions to be followed.  Finishing the session by distributing cubicle numbers for each of us, the three-sided cabins which is where we will be seated during our work life for eight hours a day and six days a week, and with a "follow me" command which had an air of elegant superiority that contradicted the visual impression about her, Anila walked out.

It was when Amutha stood up and moved aside, that my eyes caught hold of the fair figure in white churidar, whose eyes were fixed in the direction of the glass door, which Anila had swung open few moments ago.

The staring big sparkling eyes were beautifully bordered with thick eyeliner... the pair of thin lips seemed to possess its natural hue .. with carefully banded straight hair that lay silent on the shoulders.. a simple golden droplet as earring.. lean stature that radiated silence and serenity all around... I stood there mesmerized.

"Interested bro?"

I awoke from frozen stance with Anwar's tap on shoulder.  With the smile of a fool and shunning the question away, I started to walk.  To his next comment of "she is beautiful", I told him, “then she suits you more”, the talks ending in a giggle from Maninder who overheard us.

I got my cubicle just under the air condition vent, near the carpeted central corridor.  The air-vent sent down waves of cold air which made me quiver in the already cold December night of Coimbatore.  Winter nights are warmer in coastal Kerala where I belong, as the warmer Arabian sea regulates the temperature at night.

I glanced across my row.  Maninder has found a place just next to me, Amutha being next.. eyes jumped over heads across the width of the large production floor as far as the white wall, on which a baby's picture asking for silence, was affixed.

"kisse doond rahe ho bhai.. woh mallu ladki?"  Maninder grinned.  The nosy neighbour wanted to know who I was scanning the place for.  It’s the second time in ten minutes that someone made fun of me on the same issue.  Hiding the embarrassment, I asked Maninder for Arul, indicating that my search was for him.

"He is sitting just behind you." was his answer.

Circling the chair quickly, I raised my hand to call Arul, but voice stayed inside and hand stayed in air ... it was not Arul but someone else sitting there facing away from me, with the bright light from the computer creating a halo around her head, in an otherwise dim-lit hall.

After few moments of being a statue, I slowly circled around and frowned at Maninder, saying "enough of jokes man," but deep inside, happiness frothed up as if from a shaken beer.

~~~~

"Anna.. do you drink?"

Raj asked me on a leisure day, as we both sat in the cemented courtyard, enjoying some laziness.  He too started calling me "anna" to which my protests fell on deaf ears.  "You stop first, I shall too" was his approach.  As I had no intention of diluting my respect for him, it was best to let him call whatever he wants.  By now, I have understood his adamant character, which never listened to anyone else but his own inner convictions.

"I have had drinks.. with dad.. he used to give me a little when he partied with his friends at home."

I had always wondered about the psychology or mental process behind fathers giving drinks to sons.  Perhaps it is an extended hand to train them for the wild future, enabling sons to make a choice in childhood itself about alcohol, a form of conditioned training.  Somehow it has worked for me, because I never was over-excited about the idea of drinking even in college days where same-aged youngsters toppled the college hostel upside down, over a bottle of rum.

"Oh anna.. your dad is a great guy. I once tried to have a sip from my dad's bottle, but was beaten until the stick broke..!"

Closing the newspaper that I was reading, I looked at him.  His eyes and thoughts were fixed on the neem tree a little away near the babool bush fence, having shed all its leaves and standing alone in the cold morning sun; the sun reflected against the little moisture in his eyes...

"In a way, that neem and I are same fated... all life juices dried up, alone, useless.."

I said "You have everyone, and everyone loves you.. just believe in yourself."

My words seemed to have flown above his head.  He stood up and walked towards the rear of the house, and turned and asked me to follow him.  It is a thorny forest behind the house, and he expertly guided me through them for some distance, to reach a small clearing where he knelt down near some plants.

"You brought me to show these marigold plants?" was my expression of dismay.

Laughing out loud, he declared.. "This is not marigold.!"

***