The Sanghai Weekend

The Hot Dinner Served Coldly

Finally Neha invited me for the long awaited dinner. It was pending since her promotion. I had left asking her when I conjectured that she was in no mood of treating me. My speculation suffered the setback when she asked me about my availability for the dinner. I happily agreed and after pondering a lot she finally decided to treat me at Sheesha - a restaurant suggested by her friend. What a weird name for a restaurant. Sounds rather like dance bar than a restaurant to me. The 15 min auto trip extened to 25 when the auto stopped in the middle of the road. We had already expected such nuisances for our dinner trip. Mysteriously our dinner outings had a bad past attached to it.

Finally we reached Seesha, Huma. It was an open terrace restaurant with neatly done decor. The gray stone floor had high and low areas. Lower areas of the floor were filled with white marble gravels spread casually over to make the floor height even everywhere. It created a gray and white pattern on the floor and looked overly done. I could feel the gravels touching my toes and making a lousy sound as I made my way through the sea of gravels. The floor was different but definitely not impressive. As I sat on the table I could saw red napkins and traditionally designed heavy brass cutlery to serve the food. Neha was sitting on the chair kept next to mine on a table made for four. The breeze was gentle and cool but with a smell of gasoline pollutants to remind me that it was still a weekday. I asked Neha to place the order for me as well, because it was her treat. She delighted me with Mutton Korma, Mushrooms, Pineapple Raita, Tandoori Roti, and Sweet Lime. Food was definitely tasty.

We were together for the dinner but somehow we did not speak much. Most of the time both of us were silent and appeared contemplating about our own worlds. I tried reading her face by extending the length of my causal glance at her to figure out what was she thinking but I did not interpret much about her thoughts. I realized that her face was not exuding the affable warmth and the affectionate smile that she generally carried. Her body language was definitely not of a genial host's. I found her miles away from me in the physical proximity of three feet. Either the dinner was forced on her or she had something else going in her mind which made the dinner cold though it was served hot.

I dropped her at Jalvayu thinking that I would miss her for next ten days when she would be in Sanghai. Somehow, this time I did not like saying her good-bye for so long. Why do we need to say good-byes to our near and dears? Is there a way out of it? I was feeling forsaken by her. My heart was grave and grim. Was she becoming important to me?
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Unpredictable Saturday

3 p.m., my phone ring awakened me from the afternoon nap and the display read ‘Neha Calling’. My sleepy eyes came out from the sockets seeing her name. Not that she was calling me for the first time but the timing was unpredictable and unusual. She should have been flying over China at that time. I jumped off my bed in sheer disbelief as the sleepiness got conquered by anxiety. I found her on the line and she informed me how she missed the flight and could not pass the immigration. She had to come back and would fly again only on Monday. Somehow I felt happy about this bad news. The same corner of my heart which felt grave and grim a day before, had paroxysms of intense joy.

Afternoon I had personal work and went to Andheri. My friends left for town and when I came back at 5 p.m. nobody was around to sit and chat. Two hours 5-7 p.m., I was discovering ways to kill my solitude. For the fast time in Mumbai I felt lonely in this maximum city. There were numerous folks around me but there was nobody to talk to. There were places to go out but there was no company to ask for. I felt miserable and helpless in the deafening silence of solitude. There was nobody to break this eternal silence when I decided to call Neha. She was supposed to go to town but lucky I was because she did not. She was in the office and I was within fifty meters. I had never felt so happy after seeing her. Reasons were pretty obvious - firstly her being there with me when I was craving for a company, secondly I got the company I love to be with, though unexpectedly.

She looked elated as we greeted each other and exchanged smiles. We decided to go to our favorite place - CCD to grab a mug of coffee. We sat for two hours as time flew lightning fast. We have discussed so much about our lives over coffee that sometimes I wonder what had happened if coffee would not have been discovered. After a very long time I saw her in jovial mood that day. Her dulcet laughter echoed in the clamor of the coffee house and lingered in my ears till it was replaced by another one. As she drank the coffee, she untied, and again tied her hair with her hair pin clenched between her teeth.

We also talked about her long awaited music system and I suggested her to buy a Sony A-Z series. She was so much happy and lively that she unexpectedly decided to buy one - the very next day, and asked me to help her for this. I like shopping electronic equipment and gadgets. It keeps me updated about the electronics market. I welcomingly accepted the invitation. We finished our drinks and paid the bills. I left her home once again and she told me a new story once again as she always did whenever I left her back home. Kudos to her tenacious memory.
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Sunday Shopping

I reached her place at 11 a.m. and we set to Andheri to buy her music system. After a lot of discussion we decided for Sony AZ5DRS component system. Amazing quality and slick looks. The shopping finished so fast that the rest of the day looked long. Neha wanted to go to ISKON temple but I did not like her idea. Going to a temple with a girl looked like a Hindi movie script to me and I always hated it. Religious places to me are for married couples while singles should confine themselves to malls, movie theatres, coffee houses, and restaurants. Nobody should breach their territories. Luckily the temple was closed; perhaps God also had accepted this unwritten and unspoken law of territory distribution. Unanimously we agreed upon a movie and went to Fame Adlabs. We had not decided for any movie and we were open to any movie around 3’O clock – the time we reached there. Luckily we found ‘Crash’ at 3:30.

After finding that we had enough time for lunch we decided to have food at Pappi Parantha’s. What a horrible decision was that. Never in my life, I was sold a deep fried stuff as parantha. Those exorbitantly priced horrible paranthas were difficult to finish. Oil was dripping and trickling all around the paranthas and we actually used tissues at times to soak extra oil. But our attempts were rendered futile as we found more and more oil oozing out of the pores. I tried my hands at lassi that I had ordered, only to figure out that it was nothing but sweet curd. Unaware of the consistency, I used the straw to suck in but I had to try so hard that my lungs got squeezed and stuck to the walls of ribcage. Still I didn’t get anything in my mouth. Finally I had to use spoon to EAT the lassi. I cursed the place which was fooling poor Mumbaites by serving filthy stuff in the name of Punjabi food. Probably, the place had started giving nightmares to so many people who went there for Punjabi food. They would never touch Punjabi food again, thinking how lousy it was.

I lurched around the theatre before the movie when I was talking to my friend. I could not find Neha. I looked around everywhere but she had disappeared. Far in a remote corner I saw her sitting and enjoying music. Today again she looked jovial and gay and I felt happy for her. The clouds of darkness seemed to be disappearing giving way to the golden sunlight of life. And that day she was there with me mentally and physically in the proximity of three feet.