If not for my nose, I wouldn’t have ever noticed this man. Not because I was carrying the latest magazine, I had a ticket or i was thinking about the journey, actually it was midnight and somehow in my country midnight is always associated with freedom and chaos. And, right now I wanted to exercise the first and avoid the later. Ok, let me put it very honestly, amidst this chaos, I was trying to find ‘my light of the nation.’ After all I needed a spark to part with a few seconds of my life. Freedom takes life!
So be it and little I care. Right now, all I needed was a matchbox. Plain and Simple. Humming “while my guitar gently weeps,” I was trying to rationalise the closure of the shops at such an important hour, which once upon a time ushered the fathers, forefathers of now a Billion-plus people into a new era. Blame it on Macaulay, but for a good part of my life, I’ve been trained like a parrot, with only difference that my low-paying job, no social-life and lack of in-vogue six-pack abs have made me a bit erratic.
But if there is hell, heaven is not far. And my nose didn’t let me down. So, in long of short, or may be short of long, this is how I met or was forced to go to this man.
“Do you have a matchbox?” I asked, though he was smoking and asking this was stupid.
“Yes,” he offered me one.
As the sweet pungent nicotine struck a chord with my heart, I felt my spirit lifting. “The Sultan of Swings,” I thought.
“Thanks. I badly needed one,” I smiled
“You too are running,” he inquired making a statement.
For a moment I thought he is some character, in worse condition then mine and this is supposedly a philosophical question, to challenge my intellectual quotient.
“Aren’t we all running?” I promptly question-answered!
He laughed and retorted – “Isn’t it simple to say this?”
I shrugged my shoulders. This discussion was going nowhere. Just like the debate on unimportant issues such as who should get more water, power and tower. I had more task at hands and things to ponder upon – like how to get my pre-paid ‘stay connected,’ or better ask my good-looking, next cabin colleague to go to bed with me. The wish-list was long and thought of getting close to her again, raised my hair and a few more things. ‘Black Magic Woman,’ mumbled my lips.
But he didn’t notice that and much to my disappointment and as is generally the case took non-responsiveness as a sign of encouragement.
“So what are you running from?”
“Hmm...A lot of things, work, life and in a few seconds, you,” I smiled again. Hit it with a caress that has been my motto.
He laughed, coughed, spat some phlegm and cleared his throat.
“I’m not chasing you, even I’m running,” he made another statement.
“Can’t you chase and run simultaneously?” here comes a googly from my highest bid player.
He stared back at me. “I guess you can, but I can’t,” he replied
Now this was certainly going nowhere. No sledging, no walk-outs, no protests, no bombings, no axis of evil and this person is ready to accept defeat. I pounced upon the chance to draw the curtains.
“So, I wish you good luck on your run and I should take an escape,” I quickly put my thoughts into words.
“You’re lucky, you can, but they never had a chance,” he waived me off with a causal gesture and an unusual remark.
I looked at my cell. I don’t wear a watch. Don’t ask me the reason. I won’t tell. I’m still in a mood to run away from personal queries. I still had time.
“And who were they?” I asked more out of empathy than interest
“My wife and my daughter. They killed them, into pieces. I don’t know if they raped them too. My daughter was young. 7...no...7 years and two months old to be precise. They can’t have raped her?” this was his third question till now.
I felt like a contestant in ‘who wants to be the poorest,’ reality show. The only difference was I had no options to choose from.
He gave me a life-line and continued; “You see, I was born in a small region, schooled in a different one, did engineering from a regional college, MBA from another, worked as regional manager, married another region girl, our daughter was born in another region and they killed them because we were not regional. Weren’t there enough regions?”
The cigarette burnt my finger as I recovered from a trance. His regions were all right. I heard a honk, the bus had arrived. And his first statement-question was right - I WAS RUNNING.
