Well so weekends have also been in office for some time now. But the last two Sunday's have been something.... A play and a concert. Nice.
Now last Saturday I was at work. Friday night I had got home late. I had things which I knew will not be done by the time its supposed to be done. So went to office on Saturday with a strong resolve to not let anything distract me and finish my work ASAP. Listening to ARR, I started doing what I have been dong for about 5 months and what I hate. The song playing switched to Nahin Saamne. Now long back I have written a post when listening to this song. It is something I quite like and listed in the 'Stories' list on this page. Well I went and read that last saturday as I was listening to the song. Then I sat and wrote what follows here. It is as bad as stuff I normally write so I thot it deserves to share some of the glory that comes through these web-pages! :P
Oh yea, the work thatI was supposed to be doing. It didnt quite get over. Sigh! Not that I care a tiny bit! :)
So some words scribbled ( or watever is equivalent in our world of MS Word) on a Saturday morning in office....... :)
Silence.
Silence. Can conversations happen in silence? Have you experienced that kind of conversation?
It is quite beautiful really. When you are so close to someone that words seem a waste. When you know what the other mind is thinking, how the other heart is beating, how the other soul is sighing. The silence attenuates the intimacy.
And it is even more beautiful when this sometimes happens with a stranger. Some one you do not anything about. Some one, who could for all you know, who is the kind you would hate. But then in some moment when there is nothing but you and that stranger and the silence…. There can be conversation. Magic, isn’t it?
And they shared a similar kind of magic. Strangers they were. But yet in so many ways they were soul-mates. Silent conversations were all they had in common. For her and him to become a ‘them’. Those daily few minutes they shared. In silence.
Her company had a sprawling campus and many thousands moving about in it. It was quite far away from her house. After the hurried mornings, the bus ride was quite a relief. It was therapeutic. Almost as much as her favourite therapy, cooking. J She boarded the bus at about 7.20 every week day. Went straight to the back seat and sat by the window to enjoy her one hour and some minutes of therapy.
And he was always there. Sitting in the window seat at the other corner. Looking out into the world or rather lost in his world. It was his time of peace too. She knew.
Almost never did they share a word or a smile. But they always knew the other was there. The sense of connection between them was always there, lingering somewhere in the air. Above the hideous red seats and the music and the potholes.
It was strange nobody seemed to prefer the back seats. Neither of them had office-friends in that bus route. Throughout the journey, daily, they sat there. With each other. Sharing thoughts in a way even they didn’t understand.
Only once was there an act of acknowledgement that realized this phenomenon.
He had been missing for a couple of days. Her morning bus rides those days didn’t seem normal. It was like something was missing. Like when you are typing fast in your key-board, words flowing out like ink from a pen and suddenly you find some key stuck, not moving.
It was like that. Her thoughts were there. That calmness was there. But then in between, there was a stop. The thoughts bounced of an empty wall. He was not there to catch them and throw them back, carefully.
And then on the day when she climbed into the bus to catch sight of that familiar face, those eyes again, she smiled. To herself. To him. There was a smile and that first acknowledgement of ‘them’. He smiled too.
*********************
She had been trying hard for the transfer. And she finally got it, she was happy. All packed and with all the happiness in the world she left to go back home.
Those silent conversations disappeared into silence.
PS: one of the lines in this one is not mine. Its a friends.
