The Velvet Morning: Chapter Three - Cigarette-time Debate

Abhinav grabbed his brown bag and hustled away from the class as soon as the lecture was over. He left the class when others were just about to pack up.

“ Hey hey  Abhi !!! Wait up man . “ – Binay yelled from the back of the class as he collected his study materials from the desk. Binay horridly packed his things and ran through the crowd ambling downstairs. He saw Abhi’s bike parked right next to his. So he headed to the college canteen.

“ You cannot smoke in the college.” – Binay exclaimed when he saw Abhi take his packet of cigarette out of his bag. Abhi gave a reluctant look and put back the packet into the bag. “ Come on !! let’s go to  Karki Dai’s. “ They both set the engine to life and drove off their bikes on the busy road of Kasthamandup.

Karki Dai’s Tea Shop was the happening locale for Abhinav and Binay where they would often meet up to drink tea, smoke cigarette and have colloquies of their life and events. There was nothing exotic about the venue but people could get a number of items for snack or lunch at fair price than any other sophisticated-looking restaurant around.

Abhinav went first to take their usual sit that read “ 5” above the table. Just before sitting Binay shouted –“ Karki Dai ! 2 cups of tea!“.

Abhinav lit up the cigarette followed by Binay. Exhaling quick puffs of smoke onto the air, Binay asked- “ Today, in the ECO class, you looked like a crying baby pleading for something. You really look troubled these days.”

Abhinav totally ignored the remarks of Binay. At the meantime, Bhote , the waiter boy, brought them their tea.  “How is Shreesha? “ – Abhinav spoke looking at his cup of tea.

“ She is doing good. She is in Florida for a college project this summer.” -Binay answered flamboyantly. “ Do you have any idea about Prapti? How is she doing? ” – Binay continued.

“ I don’t need to know about her. I guess, you know better on her whereabouts than I do. Besides, she ended everything. So why should I be a nosy-parker on her affairs. “- Abhinav made a derogatory comment.

“ I think it was not Prapti who ruined the relationship, it was your super ego.  You were too judgmental about Prapti’s activities and imparted loads of possessiveness. It was obviously devastating for both of you. But I feel like you are still tangled up in your past. “- Binay responded Abhi’s comment.

“  You really don’t have any idea on this, so stop advocating for her “- Abhinav retorted back pointing his index finger towards Binay.

“Oh ! come on ! don’t be offensive.  I have been around you for last 15 years and no one knows you better than I do.  You are such a pigheaded person at times and resentful for trivial issues and … and … never ready to accept your shortcomings and….. ” – Binay pounced back in their customary ‘cigarette-time debate’.

Abhinav took few quick puffs of smoke into his lungs and replied-“ You can’t judge me for my apparent attitude. No one can delve into my thoughts excepting me. You have never walked into any path of affliction. So you seriously cannot feel this. Please stop inventing implausible assumptions about me and everything.”

Binay frowned on Abhinav’s notion and said – “Stop being such a pussy. You think I am unaware about the things that went between you and Prapti. Prapti always shared everything to Shreesha and there is nothing I am heedless on the matter that Shreesha is aware about. Evaluating the whole plot of your worthless love-story, my verdict is against you. “ Found guilty in love”- Binay laughed briskly and continued – “ You inflicted yourself. So…. Soooo…  stop consoling your heart telling that you were right.”

“ Did Shreesha ever tell you that Shrawan screwed her? Shrawan is Shreesha’s classmate and a good friend of mine. He told me about this in one of our Facebook chats. She is merry-making in your absence and here, you are boasting about Shreesha’s credibility. Now, go give her your verdict.”- Abhinav vocalized in an emphatic way and shook his head in disbelief as he finished his tea.

Binay slammed his hand on the table and shouted- “ What the fuck!!!! What are you trying to say? Don’t you dare talk like that about Shreesha?”

“ Calm down Binay.” – Abhinav laughed mockingly. “ Your face is worth watching. Now you look like a crying baby.”

Abhinav shrugged and continued-‘ Well, I faked that one just to check how offensive you could be on hearing Shreesha’s misdemeanor. Now, I believe you could sense what would be a real pain like to be cheated on. Prapti walks into a discotheque with a guy, gets high on alcohol, dances with her body tucked on that guy’s arm and kisses him and that was Rohan, the main adversary of my story. Now stop telling me that I was possessive about her. Possessiveness is a basic instinct in a relationship. If you do not have this instinct then you better do not vow to be in a relationship.  I have no regrets for disowning her. Shreesha probably told you the whole thing as a funfilled occasion but my hearsay evidence clearly regard that a crime. Now, give your verdict.”  Abhinav evidenced the end of his opinion by looking away from Binay with a gloomy face.

Binay left the debate as if he meant to surrender or he lacked on opinions. He did not speak a word and walked off in anger. He was just about to reach his bike when Abhinav yelled- “ Binay !!! Listen to me.”

 He was still standing in the middle of the road till Binay disappeared far on the bent.

×××

“ Abhinav was probably having you in his daydream when Ashok sir asked him a question.”- Urmila casually poked fun at Rashmi as she arranged her clothes brought by the hostel laundry.

Rashmi looked unstirred by Urmila’s joke on her. She was absorbed in the study, a daily part of her evening schedule. She finally removed her eyes from the pages and turned to face Urmila standing far on the corner in front of cupboard and then said – “ I think you have crush on him. That’s why you want to gossip about him and put me into this.”

Urmila, Rashmi’s classmate as well as hostel roommate, walked towards Rashmi and closed the book she was reading and then sat on the bed lying next to her study desk and held the cushion firm on her lap. “ Nope! you are wrong. I already have a boyfriend. I do not need to have a crush on every hot guy in the college. I just had this feeling that he kinda likes you. Didn’t you notice that he was looking at you as we walked past the canteen this morning? I am sure Abhinav was talking about you. I heard Binay and Abhinav talk in inconspicuous low tone as we moved away.”

Rashmi elbowed her right hand against the desk and rested her chin on the hand. “Oh dear, why do you have to worry about these worthless baubles? Let them do what they want. I am totally not interested in all these kinda sweet crush, or love or whatever. I am not an attention-seeking girl. I do not bother about others deed. I am always focused on what I should be doing. I am here to study, not to indulge myself in fruitless things. Do you understand? Now stop talking about that guy and let me finish this assignment.” – Rashmi replied in charismatic vocal.

“You are so mean. It is so worthless to tempt you by unprecedented flavors of life. Such a phlegmatic girl you are. I just meant to say that a beautiful and intelligent girl like you deserve to have someone like Abhinav on her side.”- Urmila advised Rashmi with a great radiance.

At the meantime, the dinner-time bell rang to terminate the conversation of Rashmi and Urmila.

×××

Abhinav came home drenched in sweat holding his basketball onto his waist. Just about to enter the home, his mother came outside with incense stick on her hand.

“ Why do you look so pathetic?”- Abhinav’s mother asked him.

“ Aama, we lost the match to our greatest rival, the Lakshyadeep.- Abhinav answered.

“ You should learn to work as a team. You have never done that in our family. At least try that in your game.” – his mother replied cunningly.

Abhinav slammed the door and entered the home. “ I hate everyone around me. Go to hell everyone.” He gritted his teeth in anger and headed for the bathroom.

After dinnertime, Abhinav laid on his bed with his both hand behind his head and faced against the wall that had the big posters of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James pasted to each other in a V shape and Arsenal 2010 team below them. Soon he seemed to be lost in a thought process. He then stretched to reach his laptop on his study desk that was next to his bed. He signed into Facebook as a part of his daily routine. Without giving much focus on the News Feed, he typed Prapti’s full name in the search field. As the browser displayed Prapti’s Profile, Abhinav clicked on the photos. He was utterly bewildered to see a photo album named ‘ Abhi’s B’Day Bash’. He stared at a photo in that album that had him and Prapti throwing piece of cakes on each other. “ Why does she still have this album in her profile? – Abhi went on a monologue. He closed the window at once and spent some time on sports webpages and went back to Facebook. This time he typed ‘Rashmi Sharma’ on the search field. Out of hundred feeds, he was unsuccessful in finding the Rashmi he was looking for.

He shut down is laptop and grabbed the basketball and lied on his bed on his usual position. He bounced the ball back and forth against the wall above the posters and flied high on the unforeseeable thoughts. Meanwhile a loud sound from the downstairs intervened his melancholy.

“ Abhi, would you please stop hitting that ball against the wall and let us watch TV peacefully.”- His mother shouted.

Abhinav rolled the ball on the floor, then switched off the light and came to the bed and got into an ease position for sleep. He then rotated to his side and grabbed his phone. Quickly he typed Binay’s number on the keypad, but an instant  ‘cigarette-time debate’ images, fresh in his mind, stopped him from pressing the call button. He released the phone from his hand and desperately waited for sleep.

The Velvet Morning : Chapter Two - The Entropy of Thoughts

“I can’t take this any further. I can’t stand this situation. It has been a month since you stopped talking to me. You don’t take my calls and you don’t reply my texts.  What’s wrong with you? You don’t even understand how hard it is for me to endure all this. “Prapti grumbled in a high tone nodding her head erratically. Her eyeballs were moving around the table as if she was trying to find a focal point and get right words out of her mind.  She finally lays her hand out of the air and palmed down on the table signifying that she was about to explain on a topic. She took a long gasp of air into her lungs “ .. aaahhhhaaaaa….”  and finally gave an appealing look towards Abhinav . “Abhi, I did this for us, for our future. Please try to understand.” She continued as tears rolled down her eyes.

Abhinav and Prapti were sitting opposite each other far on the garden hut of the ‘Coffee Garden’. Cappuccino on both the china clay was equally cold to the temperature between Abhinav and  Prapti. The bamboo table between them was just ready to sustain the heavy hands of the guests.

“Is this all you have to say?” Abhinav broke the silence and leaned forward to grab the cup of cappuccino. He took a sip.

“Where is Rohan ?” Abhi interrogated as if he loathed that name.

“I never wanted to put you in chains but did you ever ask me, a single time, a singgggggle time”– Abhi continued stressing on word ‘single’ – “that you wanted to go to Australia for your undergraduate study.”

Prapti gazed to the face of Abhinav for an instant and then bowed down for rest of the time.

“You capsized my feelings. You deliberately brushed aside my presence and took Rohan by your side.”  Abhi constricted his lips to an  “ O “ in anger, pointed his forefinger down on the table and continued to show his wrath.

 “I know what dragged you towards me. It’s God who always shows a right path. It’s because Rohan’s visa is rejected. He persuaded you on all this. Yes, I know God is watching. I’m not upset that you are leaving but I am agitated that you turned out be such an opportunist and now you say ‘you did it for us’. I can’t find myself in your so called “us”. I can’t believe you did this to me“

“Nooooo…” Prapti burst into tears. “You make such a lame judgment.  You hurt me more than anyone does. I hate you.” Prapti took a tissue to wipe tears off her face. After a pause, she looked at Abhi and told in a sobbing voice – “ It’s over. I would better die than to explain and convince you. “ She grabbed her phone from the table and stood up to leave Abhinav behind.

Abhi shouted in anger -“ Don’t you ever walk away like that”. Abhi stood up from the couch and clutched Prapti by her left hand wrist around the watch.

“ I said it’s over”- Prapti shouted back right onto the face of Abhi and jerked her hand off the clasp  and left. Abhi stood there in dismay and watched her walk past the restaurant backyard door.

“ Abhinav, now you tell me what are the forms of liquid assets?” a deafening sound approached Abhi.

He stood up to face lecturer Ashok. He turned around to look at his classmates with searching eyes as if he just landed on a new planet.  A big pie chart on the whiteboard, with a big chunk for ‘ Government”, was no hint for the question. An inconspicuous whisper from Binay was only sound he heard.  He stood idle and people on the front rows turned back to see him. There was such a lag in his cognition and finally grimaced to accept that he was lost in the world of imaginations.

 

“ Sit down !!!. Stop daydreaming.”- lecturer Ashok turned towards the class and said “ Guys, please focus. This is very important.”

Abhinav sat down and put both his hand on forehead to scan through the lines on the book. His thoughts were elsewhere. He removed his view from the book and tried to face the lecturer but his eyes subconsciously took him to Rashmi. He could visualize her right shoulder axis on a single plane from that corner position. She was utterly focused on lecturer Ashok.  He noticed her slender neck. Meanwhile she collected those untied strands of hair behind the pinna to reveal an emerald like ear stud.

Soon, Abhinav was submerged on the flood of pictures that emerged in entropy from two contrary situations viz., the situation when Prapti broke up two years ago and the canteen scenario that happened the very morning when Binay was talking about Rashmi.

The Velvet Morning : Chapter One - The Law of Apathy

The Law of Apathy

“ Abhi, look at her”- Binay poked Abhinav to drive his attention from the plate of Samosa towards a girl who made her way through the college entrance.

“Isn’t she something out of this world? Pristine ehhh and elegant…” He continued. Then took his eyes off the aisle through the gate, put his right hand on the chin to scratch his beard so as to conceal his opinion, then gave witty look to Abhinav and with a smirk on the face he said- “I feel like you two could make a perfect couple “

Abhinav, took a fine section of samosa in his hand, and replied with an irksome attitude – “ try such cheap cracks on other people “ . He took the piece into the mouth and spoke along chewing “ that girl is a dejected piece of shit.”

An ash-gray pant, perfectly creased cream color shirt, a maroon color college-tie around the collar and a black converse as footwear is the characteristic college get up of Rashmi, about whom Binay was gesticulating emphatically. Her fair complexion face glowed in the beam of light and her pitch-black hair, ponytailed, rippled in the morning breeze as she walked past the canteen.

She did not dare to twist her head to an angle though she could clearly make out that guys in the canteen were gossiping about her. Undoubtedly, Rashmi was the most beautiful girl in the freshmen class of Business Administration in Kasthamandup College. She had every right to exhibit an arrogant attitude to worthless loafers of the college. Rashmi, nonchalantly moved past her colleagues standing on the college porch and went straight for the staircase to the class.

Kasthamandup College is a renowned business college in the city of Kasthamandup. The five storied building owned by the college, painted in burgundy theme, had the façade on the south and it rather looked like one of the malls in the city. The college entrance led to an aisle with the beautiful garden on both the sides. The college cafeteria was on the right to the college entrance next to the water fountain in the garden. The whole college garden looked like a little park. Sporting zone was on the north to the building. It included a basketball court, 4 table tennis boards, and a volleyball court. The small house to the east of the college building was the security guards’ quarter and the house to the west was a maintenance arena.

Abhinav belonged to a middle-class family. Both his parents were the government officers. They always wanted him to be an engineer but engineering stuff did not quite connect to him. He always wanted to be a basketball player. Fate dragged him to study business to the very college his best buddy Binay got admitted. He was not destined for engineering degree but he was obviously carving several ways to engineer his basketball skills in the college from the very first day. He was the most happening guy in the college. Boasting the height of 5’10”, a muscular body and amazing basketball skills, he represented his college in the intercollege basketball tournament just the next month he got admitted. Everyone in the college adored Abhinav for his charm. He was already in a limelight.

The second week in the college, Abhinav was scribbling an artwork in his account copy. Insanely, out of nowhere, he tore the whole thing. In another moment his creation was crushed in his right palm. He set the target on the dustbin lying at left top corner of the class, just next to the class door and in a good projectile; he tossed the paper ball from the right bottom corner of the class. The paper ball swirled across the room but it took the final path towards the door. It hit on the nasal bridge of a girl who was just about to step inside. An instant contact was enough to stimulate reflex that caused her to sneeze.

Abhinav, apologetically shouted-“ Are you hurt ?...Sorry “ But without any gruesome response she went for her seat at second column on the third row. That was the first bizarre rendezvous of Abhinav with Rashmi.

He would soon discover her to be atypical girl in the whole college. He onward believed that Rashmi was abiding by the law of apathy.

30 +

I was barely an 11-year-old kid when I was admitted as a boarding student in Gandaki Higher Secondary Boarding School. That meant I would have a good schooling life but my family life was like 3 months a year. Catching the pinpoint, the essential years when I should have spent my years learning Life 101, I had someone who would do everything for me. I never had to cook food for those 9 years because I had a grand Dining Hall entourage to do that, and I would pack my dirty clothing for a week or so to give it to the laundry. Things were not going to be as parasitic it was for rest of the life.

Getting into Pokhara Unversity for the undergraduate study was the perfect setting to stay attached to home. I am very grateful for all those circumstances that pushed me a step closer to home. Now I was back to all those life processes to be accomplished on my own. Well, I bet you won’t let your mommy wash your clothes when you are already in your twenties. You are not well-off to afford a washing machine or you do not have a maid then you better be ready to waste some muscle to wash your clothes and so was my case. I could barely cook something that would taste right. The only thing I could cook that would taste perfect was TEA. I guess no one would use the term “cook” for preparing TEA ha ha !!!!! , yes preparing is the right word.
     
Life was going to be strange for next 4 years in Pokhara University and I was dead sure of that. The first thing I imagined,after I got admitted to PU, was that hanging myself in the gangway of the bus where all the people are staring at me (I was pretty sure that my parents would not afford me a motorbike). Till date, I had never ever used a vehicle to go to study. To accept the new faces was the hardest of all when I had left behind the 9 years of acquaintances. Rakes and Umesh were luckily the only people who continued to be my classmates. For god’s sake I was not going to feel alienated in that desert.

Computer lab meetings was one of the greatest ways to see new faces ( besides sports). I had started connecting to people through Facebook. Two new guys, seemingly arrogant, were going to have my friend request. The first talk between us was about my profile picture that had my hand barred on C#m chord on my guitar and the whole picture was in X-ray effect.

“This chord must be C#m “ – Sashank
“ Yes, I feel the same “ -Anish
Me - “ yes, it is ”

Music brought us together, and so did the football. Football was a common bond. We were soon the best buddies talking wild about music, sharing songs and football tournament bridged the every spaces between us : Me, Anish and Sashank.

The real woes began when I was home alone. November 2009 I joined PU and March 2010 my mom was out for a tour with dad. She was in Butwal to visit Lumbini. For a week or so I would cook for my self. I started getting lazy and I cooked just enough so that food would last for the evening and I would just warm it up and do not have to cook again as I get home in the evening. One normal evening I ate so- called stale food after warming. Next day I was in the college and I sensed something wrong inside my stomach. It was flatulence. That day, I hesitantly had chowmein in Machhapucchre restaurant. In the evening, I did not feel like eating any thing but I prepared
noodles. By the bedtime my situation was worse. The time must have been around 9 pm when I first vomited and that contained fresh chowmein and noodles strands. After a while, I had to facilitate for the first loose motion . It went like sssshhhhh….frrrrrrrr­rrraaaaaaaaa….. ahhaa… ha ha.

For rest of the night in every 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes interval I went to bathroom to release my sin. I was rapidly dehydrating. My lips were dry and started to split. My muscles were already weak. I frantically searched the medicine box and found an ORS packet and Metronidazole with diloxanide. I took Metro on stat. ORS just lasted an hour. Through the moaning midnight  situation was getting worser. I found Knorr Mushroom soup in the kitchen. It lasted another hour. I was hungry and I made Rara Noodles soup. By then, I had almost used every utensils in the kitchen. I tried a lot but hardly managed to get a good sleep. It was 3 am in the morning when I got out of bed to head to the bathroom then I fell to the ground. I was feeble. Taking support of all the limbs I managed to clear once again. I was completely alone, not even the people on the rent were home that day. I did not feel like bothering anyone in the middle of the night. I must have had a good sleep after that. First thing I did in the morning was calling Sashank to take me to the hospital. He took me home and nursed me pretty well. I had a check up and took medicine. By the evening, almost after 20 hours, I was feeling better. I am highly indebted to what Sashank did to me. Today is 5th December, Sashank’s 23rd birthday. And I wish him every bit of happiness. Well, writing this memoir is kind of birthday gift and also those shits I had released on counting 30 +.