2020 arrived a few hours before and here it comes straight away with a challenge even before it really even started. It didn’t wait for the usual honeymoon period to go past. May be it knew that he was ready or he couldn’t afford not to be ready.
When the world was awake celebrating the arrival of a new dawn, he had his priorities sorted. A good night sleep was all that he wished after a terribly tiresome day. Yesterday was eventful for him as any other day for a common man.
After he knew about how he had been ditched by his ‘close ones’, he had decided to visit the temple – A not so usual thing to do on a new year’s eve. He had lost his way trying to reach the temple ground, surprisingly not in the vicinity of the temple, the previous evening when Google Maps cheated him. He had enquired about it to a resident in the locality and her clear cut directions lead him to a dead end. He sighed in despair.
To get over with the helplessness, he had decided to have his favourite street made ,allegedly chineese, gobi manchurian ,which turned out to be a disaster and costlier owing to the rising onion prices. But yeah, he didn’t even see a piece of onion in dish. ‘Yeh, kya scam he yaar’ he thought.
And in the end as he walked all the way home, he had a nasty bitter argument with a bikewala who was riding or rather racing on the footpath to escape from the traffic. Was it his affinity in establishing social order or his frustration only the ones standing around knew.
Having said that, Yes,he was tired.Real tired. And before the new year wishes start pouring in with all those “lovely” forward messages, he crawled under the blanket with his phones off. Yeah, the poor chap surely needed some sleep.
He got up late and hurried through his routine in order to reach office on time. Having terribly lost the fight with those extra pounds around his belly, he had tied some strings over his intake. The frugal ‘fruit bowl’ in the canteen would have been waiting patiently to be his first meal. But here he was infront of a neat and tidy restaurant welcoming him to break his fast for the first time this year. He ditched the fruit bowl and climbed the stairs of the restaurant.
And there he met her near the food counter . She was there, beautiful as ever, waiting for her plate. She had not changed a bit since they last spoke. Still shining and attracting everyone around waiting for their order. He had not kept in touch with her since the ‘health conscious’ diet days had barged into his life.
Guilt was battling with his excitement. He was finding it difficult to face her eventhough he wanted to convince himself that ‘they were on a break’. Alas,nothing worked and he had to come forward to break the ice . She was waiting there on her plate with a pinch of butter melting down off her hotness. His heart skipped a beat in excitement. He walked with her to a lonely corner of the restaurant and put the first morsel into his mouth. He sighed in relief ; in relief of re-establishing his complicated relationship with her- ‘The Masala Dosa’.
PC: Vidyarthi Bhavan
Follow the White Rabbit 