Pani Puri

Tears kept streaming down his eyes. He was embarrassed by it. Especially since she was sitting right opposite him at the table. He knew her eyes were on him. But he couldn’t help it. The tears refused to stop. 

“Still can’t handle the spice eh,” she laughed as she looked at his hapless face. She knew the pani puri was way too spicy for him. Her trick had worked. 

“And yet you don’t go easy on them do you,” he countered, trying to mask his obvious embarrassment. “You load them up as much as you can, just to see me this way.” 

She laughed out loud, looking at him lovingly. It had been so many years since she’d seen him from so close. His crinkly eyes, all teared up, his salt and pepper hair, more salt now than pepper actually, his boyish expression. She loved having him so near after all these years. 

“I knew her way before I knew you,” he had told her husband. “We were in college together, you know.” He worked with her husband for about 3 years now and yet it was only a month ago when he came to know that she was his wife. 

“So how was she like in college,” her husband asked him, as the three of them settled on the rug on the floor after the pani puris. 

“She…she was amazing,” he wondered aloud, looking at her sparkling almond eyes as he reminisced. He spoke on and on about her, as her husband heard in rapt attention. She felt partly embarrassed hearing about herself from him. And yet another part of her remembered her old self lovingly, almost as lovingly as he seemed to remember. 

“Why are you such a fraud,” he asked her. “You step out of your Mercedes in a Khadi kurta and torn jeans and chappals, screaming hoarse about socialism. Do you realise how fake it sounds?” 

“I just don’t get your logic. Because I come to college in my dad’s car means I can’t talk about socialism? Do you even hear yourself to realise you make no sense whatsoever,” she angrily retorted. 

Their college days were filled with such daily banter. Her left-leanings amused him more than it irritated him. He was an unabashed “commie-basher,” as he loved to call himself. His ambition knew no bound as he wanted to succeed. Success and speed. That was his only mantra those days. As they sat together in the college canteen, he’d be drawing up business plans for his own future company, whilst she’d sketch the couple next to them. Sometimes she would show him one of her writings. He’d dismiss them as “typical teen-angst a-la Sylvia Plath”. Naturally she’d be furious. But by the end of the day they were back to holding hands, whispering sweet nothings.  

She rushed to college that rainy day looking desperately for him. Her father had arranged her marriage with a friend’s son who had his own IT firm. The boy has a bright future, her father beamed, as he held her confused face in his palms. He will keep you very happy,” he added, without waiting for her answer. 

She couldn’t see him anywhere. Even their common friends hadn’t seen him the whole day. She kept wondering where he could be. And then it dawned on her that she had asked him to get ready to meet her father one of these days to talk to him about the two of them. “I’d rather run away than talk to him without having made a mark for myself,” he’d joked then. “Maybe he wasn’t joking after all,” she thought to herself as she waited the whole day alone in the college canteen. 

He wasn’t to be seen for the next few days. She waited, tried his home phone but got no response. Every time the phone rang at her place she’d run to pick it up hoping it was him. But he didn’t call. He didn’t come. Her father announced her wedding date on the day of her engagement. It was a short and sudden ceremony. She smiled throughout the evening, holding back the tears that were fighting to come out. She had never seen her father so happy. And yet all the while he didn’t call or arrive. 

He finally arrived on the evening before her wedding. They sat together in one corner of her room. Her house was filled with relatives and guests, everyone busy with last minute work for the big day. Her cousins were in the room with them, so they had to keep their voices down. 

She held his hands tightly as those tears found their way out of her sad eyes. “Why why why?” The only words she whispered in the middle of her silent sobs, her head bowed down. He was trying to tell her about an opportunity in the USA which he was working on and how he wanted to surprise her. But by the time he had come with his surprise, it was too late. 

“We can still run away you know,” he whispered, looking around to see if anyone else in the room had heard him. He knew it was a futile last attempt. 

“Go away,” she jerked his hand off hers, in a silent rage that was eating her up from inside. “Go, just go.” 

The beep of her mobile brought her back to the present day. 

“Thanks for a lovely evening. Although the pani puri was too spicy for me as always, I loved being at your place. You’ve truly made it a beautiful home. And your husband is such a wonderful person. And I am not saying this because he’s my boss. I genuinely mean it. I didn’t take the USA contract after I left your house that day. My life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. But I’m happy to see you’re happy. Always stay this way.“

Tears kept streaming down her eyes. She was embarrassed by it. Especially because her husband was sitting right next to her. 

“The pani puris must’ve been really spicy,”  he consoled her, as he wiped the tears off her face and hugged her. She shut her eyes as she hugged him back right, and her tears still flowed. They had been held back for many years. 

NB: “Pani Puri” is a spicy tangy Indian snack

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar