FOUR
A bell rang, breaking her thoughts. It was the coffee guy.
“Madam, your coffee,” he said.
She took the cup of coffee from him, cursing him for shaking her out of her reverie. She turned towards her laptop to peep at her Facebook account. Was he really dead? She remembered the first time she saw Nimesh. He was half drunk, almost yelling as he danced. They were at Club 10, a hangout for the well-to-do, who mostly seemed to have nothing else to do. She was sitting at one of the tables, toying with her cocktail and thinking abouthermarriage she wished she had not gotten into.
“Come, dance.” Her friend Reva Sharma called her.
She shook her head. She was too shy to dance, without the drink flooding her brain. She sipped her drink letting, her mind wander away.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi!” she said in reply, involuntarily, turning around to see a slim guy standing next to her. His naughty grey eyes sparkled. Grey eyes! Whoa. He was cute as hell, though.
“I think I've seen you earlier,” he said.
“Really!” she sounded disinterested.
“I saw you ordering at the bar a few minutes back,” he smiled.
.He was such a cliché and immature. But he was cute, she thought.
“Yeah, or maybe I have been photographing someone who looks like you.”
What does he want to say? She wondered if he was trying to impress her.
“You're a photographer?”
“Yes, but I hardly get to do nude photography,” he said sotto voce.
The kid had nerves. But his cute looks were disarming. She would not have tolerated such a statement from anyone else. Yet that was the beginning of a mad friendship. Nimesh started visiting her often. They used to chat for hours about photography and how he wanted to write a book. There was something different about him, but he was her excellent companion, full of life.
“You want to write a book?” She had looked at him dumbstruck. The guy looked like he'd just been weaned off his mother's milk. What could he possibly write about? And now he was dead. There will be no book. Only a closed chapter. The pun was not in good taste, she thought.
She cursed herself for not regularly staying in touch with him. The last she heard from him was when he was fully immersed in his course on photography at an Australian institute.
Once, when they met, he had shown her some of his photographs. Those sure had depth in them which she did not expect from someone who was so young.
He was a decade younger than her. He was brought up single-handedly by his mother who he looked up to. The best part was he was taught to respect women. He was born and brought up in Mumbai and did not have the indifference Delhi seem to sow in its people.
“You know Maya dear, I've written a poem about you. I'll show it to you someday,” he said dramatically. They had come for a candy to the beach and Nimesh was talking about his dream to open an advertising agency. It was a starry night and they could see a ship anchored in the sea. The sand below their feet was cold. He walked, though Maya, however did not take her slippers off as she was too lazy to walk holding them in her hands. She would rather let them get wet with her. The sand felt soothing.
“Oh dear Nimesh! Wouldyou just sing tome?” She mimicked him naughtily.
'You should take off your slippers first. Feel the sand.”
Maya did as told. The sand tickled her wet feet. The foam massaged and hugged her sore sole. Every now and then a little wave would come and wash her feet.
Whenever he was around she became a teenager. That was a magical change he gifted her. The teenager in her was very fond of Nimesh. But he was in love with her and told her so.
She did love him or rather she loved herself when he was around. Yet she was scared of him falling in love with her. She was living separate from her husband, but they hadn't got to the divorce zone yet. She was trying to get away from the disappointment and the pain and being with Nimesh was a wonderful remedy.
“Aa a a a a a...I love you, Maya. I can wait for you,” he used to stutter when excited. T t t ………..tell me you love me too. He held her from the shoulders, making her face him.
She did love that moment. Even the stuttering was cute. In that moment she loved him. She loved the innocence in his eyes. She loved the uber charm, he had. How many types of love one can experience, she wondered. Yet it was not the love that he wanted her to feel.
“You know that I like you, Nimesh. Let's not spoil it. You know I'm older than you, right?
He would never accept no for an answer. How the hell did the difference in age matter, he asked. What could she tell him, apart from that which mattered?
She had seen so much in life already. He on the other hand was innocent in his ways and deserved a less complicated life.
The innocence in his eyes made her feel miserable. Before she could say anything he looked up and smiled.
“It's fine. I understand.”
She sighed and looked at the moon, casting its spell on the sea, with folded arms. The sea knows that it would never touch the moon. The waves rise and keep trying to reach the beautiful moon, to engulf it. The moon just smiles. It grips the sea tight enough only to see it go again. She felt she was the sea. The dreams rise and then fall, just to rise again. In reality they might never reach the height. Only the flood marks will increase.