A Tryst with my Made-up Stories
The clouds were welling up, and the evening could not have been more spectacular with everything around coated in lead. I could stand there all my life, if only the clouds stayed there, blessing me with the same view for eternity. But the whole town was hurriedly rushing to their homes not waiting for the heaven's blessings to pour upon them. My classes got over a little early today, and there was another half an hour for my bus to reach the stop.
I stood there calculating how to kill my time as I was suddenly reminded of putting my people watching skills to good use. Yes, everybody has a story. My task today was to look around at random people and guess their life stories. Where are they from? Where is she going to? Why does he look sad? Why does he look so grumpy? They don't look like a happy couple, Is he going to file a divorce?
I waited patiently – for the tiny droplets to hit the ground, the never-on-time bus to reach the stop, and for a perfect victim to fathom out a story. I looked around. The zappy boy garbed in a printed tee and a faded ankle length jeans at the other end of the road was lost in his own world of hip-hop music tuned into his eardrums. A woman, probably in her forties, frantically trying to get an auto, so that she could reach home on time. Worry was etched on her face, eyebrows scrunched up, constantly shifting from one leg to the other, checking the gold plated watch on her left wrist, probably hurling abuses at the auto driver who drove past her as he did not seem interested in the place she wanted to go; she seemed a mess. What could be her story? Is she trying desperately to reach back home before her teenage daughter got back? Or is it because of her husband ... I could not put a full stop to my ruminations when someone rushed into the bus stop grazing past my right arm. I hated being disturbed while I was crafting a story to my forty-year-old woman across the street, but turned back to see a much more interesting story who found herself a spot on one corner, squatting on the floor, gently swaying to and fro, and muttering something incoherently. She must be a woman in her sixties, maybe, I thought. She clad herself in a disheveled off-white saree and blouse, scruffy hair with more grey and a few occasional black strands, bare feet covered with dirt, and the only embellishment on her face was a few drops of tears in her eyes ready to race out before the clouds above us did. "Found it!" I yelled in my head. Now, what could be her story?
Mother could not hold those tears back. It was the third time this week that her son threatened to take her to the old age home. That single bedroom apartment in the heart of the city where her son, daughter-in-law and their two children lived surely did not have space to house a sixty-year-old. Though her son made an excuse of the space constraints to his colleagues, she knew that neither the house nor its inhabitants' hearts had any place for her. But today, things went a bit out of hand when the daughter-in-law yelled at her and commented how she was a pain in the neck for everyone.
Oh No! Wait! Now... isn't this the same rubbish that my mother so reverently watches every weekday from dusk till midnight? I always knew that the idiot box blaring on the other end of the wall would soon take a toll on my thought process. And that day was today.
A car screeched to a halt in front of the bus stop while I was trying to scheme out a way and put an end to the evening doses of daily drama aired through the innumerable dish-top caparisons on the terraces of every house in the neighbourhood. A girl of my age scurried to the bus stop and kneeled down near the old woman. "Ma... please come home. I was so worried... I looked for you everywhere... Please come with me." Her voice cracked as she was trying to hold her mother's hands. The old woman stared at the girl for a few seconds before asking "Who are you?"
As the girl tried to convince her that she was her own daughter, a score of onlookers gathered around them out of mere curiosity and wonderment. I walked over to the other end of the bus stop reminding myself that no matter how hard I try or how shrewd I am with my people-watching skill, never will I be able to guess a human being's real plight.
My bus finally reached the stop. I got in, found myself a window seat, and as I turned to the left aisle there was a young girl with her face covered skilfully with a cashmere shawl, leaning on the shoulder of a boy seated on her left, and on her lap was a brown duffle bag, and another grey one tugged under their seat. "Woah! She looks like a school girl! Is she running away with him? Why else would she need those bags? And why cover her face?" ... my thought process ran again like a wild horse. Some people never learn!