The sky resembles a scratched and weathered piece of slate, stray drops of rain now starting to trickle down sides of faces and windshields. The chilly air makes a stray dog walking past the Bullet shiver instinctively. An air blast later, the dog has taken off, running towards the safety of its stinking gutters and overflowing rubbish dumps while the man standing next to the motorcycle looks heavenwards and curses loudly, once.

“You rotten piece of sub-standard, swindled Karol Bagh crap!”

The rain starts to come down heavier. Bulbous drops bounce off the petrol tank, hissing into oblivion when they strike the still warm silencer. Two more short blasts is all that the bike would speak right now. After that, even the air blasts stop. The kick keeps making a hollow clunking sound, missing the ignition. Sweat and rainwater mingle freely on his temples. His pant starts drinking up the water flowing down the road hungrily, wet patches climbing quickly towards his knees. The traffic is starting to come to a standstill already- he can hear honks in the distance. Soon, the jam would stretch down to where he stands. Another curse bubbles at the tip of his tongue, but the sheer desperation in the moment refuses to let him mouth another word.

“Farid?”

The voice is of a woman. The odds of having your bike break down, getting caught in the rain and running across a woman you know have to be really small, almost miniscule. But here it is. He does not turn at once. Pulling out the center-stand, he heaves the bike and parks it. Leaning with his right elbow on the handle, he turns around, supporting himself on the bike and using his free hand to shake off the free drops of rain that hang on his eyebrows. He does not recognize her at first glance.

She is sitting in an auto. The jam has crept up to the point where he is standing, making movement for the auto impossible. A few irate drivers honk their frustration, but the auto driver is patient. Instead, he chooses to turn his neck and figure out the developments happening at the back of his own ride. She has pleasant features; going by the judgment of the Indian Middle Class Male, she would definitely pass off as good looking. Another woman, on the other hand, might find some sort of a flaw; a few grays that haven’t been taken care of, slightly smudged lipstick on the right side of her lips, kohl that definitely needs retouching, fast developing crow’s feet…but not the Indian Male. Most would stare at her for as long as the traffic would allow and then continue to wherever they were headed. He manages to gauge all of this in the span of a few seconds.

“Farid? It’s me, Alka.”

Flashes of recognition inside Farid’s head. Shutters of closed memories go up, quick and silent, letting the contents crowd the insides of his head freely. Things he doesn’t remember, things he thinks he never knew, are fighting inside his head for attention. The old face of Alka is trying to elbow out the new one that stares at him from inside the auto; a face that he cannot shake off suddenly. It has become the single point of light in the universe, everything else turning into a dark, inky mass. Yes, it is her, that-chick-from-college, the I-don’t-know-where-she-is, the I-wish-I-had-kept-in-touch girl. His movement is slow, calculated. He walks across small puddles, making his way slowly towards her. They feel like landmines poised to blow off.

“Such a surprise! What are you doing here?” she says, giggling like the girl he remembers. A big weight slides off his shoulder. His head continues to remain on high alert.

“Oh. Stupid bike broke down. Won’t start” he says, talking in a drawl, trying to keep his breathing even. Act cool.

“Such a shame! Come down to the CCD in the corner? Let’s quickly grab a coffee!” she says, already turning to check the meter. The auto driver bunches up his eyebrows and passes a dirty look to Farid.
He is about to lose a customer much before the destination.

“You can’t just get off! You were going somewhere, weren’t you?” Farid fumbles, taken aback at the sudden change of circumstances.

“I was. But not anymore” she says, digging through change in her wallet and handing it to him in a few quick motions. Then, she pauses, for a moment.

“Unless…um, you have some other plans or whatever” she stammers, her face changing back to the woman in the auto.

“No no! I am totally cool!” he says stupidly, trying to explain her a lot of things through sign language. His body behaves like it has come in contact with a naked power line.

“Ok then! Let’s go. I have an umbrella” she says and climbs off the auto. The driver gives one final look and goes back to staring at the car in front of him. His auto remains where it is.

“It is this way” she says and opens the umbrella. Farid is happy to find out that it is one of the bigger, rainbow colored models which can easily accommodate two people. He won’t have to walk too close to her. But how is that a bad thing? Is that a bad thing? His mind feels cluttered with useless thoughts. He passes a look at his bike. The bike continues to stand silently. The silencer doesn’t hiss anymore; the rain has cooled it down completely.

“It’s a nice bike. We will come and get it back” she says, starting to move towards the direction opposite to the traffic. He walks in step.

“So! Mr Fresher! You are living it up aren’t you?” she mocks playfully, nudging him. Farid doesn’t know how to react. “Hehe not really” he mumbles. His mind is still on the bike. ‘I can’t believe the bugger didn’t ride a full day properly after purchase’ he thinks inside his head.

“So, um. We are meeting after so many years!” he tells her. It sounds hollow to him, a forced conversation.

“Yeah, glad I bumped into you! There’s so much to catch up on!” she says. The CCD appears around the corner. People with bicycles, motorists and other pedestrians stand under its awning, mostly soaked, waiting for the rain to stop. Farid doesn’t expect empty seats inside.

“Empty chairs! How lucky can we get!” she says, trying to peer into the slightly fogged up glass. Farid pushes the door open and lets her enter first.

“Chivalry and all, haan!” she says and gets in. Farid smiles to himself and follows her. The door closes behind them and the chaos slowly recedes, replaced by the soft, damp music playing in the background. Alka places her umbrella among a few others near the door. Her umbrella is clearly the biggest.

“Two cappuccinos, we will order food in a bit” she speaks in a single breath and grabs a chair. He quietly sits on the other. A few people take notice. Farid feels like he is on his first date in college. And suddenly, something clicks into place inside his head.

“So, Farid saab! How have you been! Riding a bullet! I would have expected you behind a steering wheel!” she jokes, looking straight at him. Farid smiles, breathes in slowly and puffs out his chest slightly. He feels squirmy, almost uncomfortable. Girls would never believe how uncomfortable boys feels when they are trying to act their coolest.

“No, nothing cool yaar” he says, breaking into college speak for the first time in years. “I bought the stupid bike today morning at Karol Bagh. Second hand. Bloody should have stuck to taking a new one. Those shiny cover up jobs got me bloody fooled.”

“Arre! Then this is your treat!” she grins and motions the waiter. “I am ordering a chicken sandwich, you want one?”

Farid wants to say no but nods ‘yes’ instead. His stomach takes control over his head momentarily and then returns it back to the brain. The waiter gives a quick shake of his head and goes back to the counter.

“So, what’s up?” Alka asks, settling down comfortably in the couch.

“Nothing really. The usual…work, home, office, deadlines blah” Farid smiles, rolling his eyes. He hopes she would giggle but she doesn’t. Age dulls your sense of humor, he thinks. And then as a second thought, ‘or sharpens it’.

“Oh don’t be boring! You got married?” she questions, her enthusiasm almost infectious.

“What? No, No!” he raises his hands, as if warding off an illness. “I am nowhere near marriage dude” he says. Then casually, “You must be what, three years married now?”

“Dude, no” she says and goes quiet. He doesn’t know how to react to that. Hadn’t he seen her marriage pictures on Facebook? Or is he confusing her with someone else?

“Forget about that” she resumes “How did you end up buying a bullet at…this age? Mid-life crisis hitting early?”

“Haha, nothing of that sort. Actually, I have been following this blog online…they have regular features on Bullet trips to far off places- Ladakh, the Western Ghats, the North-East…it’s crazy. I have been planning to get it for over two years now. Finally, it happened today” he finishes, quickly taking a sip from his steaming cup of coffee. He is scared of coming off as a college kid to someone he has met after seven years.

“But seriously? Just that?” she asks.

There is more to it. Farid decides to divert the topic.

“Yeah yeah, mid-life whatever man. Tell me what you have been up to?” he shifts the focus back on her.

“Oh nothing much actually. College got over, then I got into a PG in journo. Finished that, found a job with a stupid rag mag and have been doing the same ever since. No excitement on this side of the fence. Hey, do you remember Aasma?”

“Haha yeah.” His grin is a little too wide.

“God. You guys are all the same man! College is over! We are twenty-eight!” she shakes her head.

“But…how could you not notice! I mean not you, but you know…guys…” he stammers and laughs at the same time. He feels a strange sort of ‘comfort juice’ being pumped into the room. He sinks a little deeper into his chair. His form is more relaxed.

“Anyhow, I did not bring her up to discuss her ‘you knows.’ Did you know she married Anshuman, that weirdo from Chem Honors?”

“What, no way!” Farid genuinely sits up. He cannot bring himself to imagine even a telephone pole having any sort of relationship with Anshuman, let alone marrying him. “Aasma? Really?” he squints, trying to see if she is bluffing.

“Yeah man. Don’t ask me how or why. We live in a very strange world. I got the info second-hand, from Mou” she says, taking a big bite out of her sandwich.

“Oh, alright” the twinge in Farid’s heart loosening slightly. “How’s she doing? You still in touch with her?”

“Yeah, she’s good. She’s working in PR. Got married. Expecting a kid in about six months. Oh wait, I am not supposed to wave that news around” she says and slaps her forehead.

“Whaa? So soon?” Farid says.

“It’s not soon Farid” her voice is serious. Farid realizes she is speaking the truth. Another quick change of topic required.

“So you have been working with one company? All this time?” he asks.

But she isn’t there. The conversation has suddenly become unimportant for her. There’s too much inside her head. Her eyes have gone out of focus and moved to the scenery outside the glass doors of the café. A car has stalled in the middle of the road. There are incessant honks, but they trickle in lightly through the crevices. She can’t focus on a thought. Her mind jumps from moment to moment, not giving her enough time to pluck a memory and unfold it. Here she is, at another café, just like this one and it’s her first year of college. Now it’s her mother crying next to the bed…someone just gave her very bad news over the phone. A flash of a medical prescription. She does not remember it anymore. These memories are not hers. They belong to a person she deliberately left alone in a crowd and hoped to lose. But that didn’t happen. The person (a man? a woman? do memories have a gender?) found its way to her and crept up right back into her mind. There is no losing the person. There is no end to conflict. There is no winning the war. There is no marriage. There are no children…

“Alka?” Farid shakes her back to the present.

“Yeah, what?” she reacts, like she is seeing him for the first time.

“Houston, we have contact” he says, trying to smile. He knows she isn’t in the conversation anymore, but he doesn’t want to let go.

“What, sorry” she says, shaking her head. “You were asking?”

“No, nothing important. I was saying you stuck to one job all this time?” he says, but the question seems irrelevant.

“Yeah, why not?” she says, looking eager to debate.

“Because…it’s boring” Farid says, biting his lower lip and raising his eyebrows. He almost looks apologetic. Alka smiles.

“Why don’t you tell me about your career so far? And please, I am still waiting to hear about the bullet. Don’t think I have forgotten.” She seems to have tuned back in.

“Oh, nothing much. I have been working with a lot of places. Too many to go into specifics actually. I have gone across industries, companies. Then I got bored of them and left all of it. I am just consulting now. I think I get bored too easily” Farid says, trying to sound as humble as possible. He considers this constant shift a strength; a quality that people who stagnate in life don’t have.

“Hmm. So to you, a gratuity is a bad thing eh?” she jokes.

“No, no! I just don’t see myself ever working my way towards one” he says.

“Fair enough. So you cannot comprehend how I could have spent so much time with one job right?”

“To put it in a way, yes” Farid whispers, almost too afraid to be loud. Thunder rumbles in the background, sounding filtered through a cotton gauze.

“What if I love it? What if I have enjoyed doing the same thing for over seven straight years now? I have been filing stories all this time and I have met a lot of interesting people…politicians, actors, common people, and not-so-common. In fact, I think I have had more fun than a lot of people, you included” she finishes, drawing in a large amount of air like she hasn’t breathed in a long time. Memories, the ones she tried to lose but came back, try to crawl back into focus but she is ready for them this time. She pushes them back to their dark corner comfortably.

“Hey, peace” Farid stammers.

But there is no calm inside Alka’s head. A sleeping monster has been stirred and it is rearing its ugly head into the conversation. She cannot control it. She has fed it all she could – sleepless nights, pain, tears, regret, desperation…even a half-hearted suicide attempt. Nothing else. It is over, it has to be. It died and she forgot about it. It’s dead and buried, forever. It cannot haunt her anymore, it shouldn’t. But it does. It belongs to the love that she talks of – the love of seven years. That was a different love, one that took her heart and tore it to shreds before flinging it to the winds. Tears threaten to spill. She is on the edge.

“You were my first date” he blurts out. The void inside her head closes once again.

“What?”

“Yeah, you probably don’t remember” he says, but he is not thinking of Alka. He is thinking of her. She and scenes from a past that threaten to break through the foam of his present. A time when he thought of Alka but she wasn’t there. Fate is a hopeless comic.

“Ofcourse I do! Oh my god yes! And it was a CCD!” she gasps.

“Yes it was. Funny co-incidence, right?” he smiles. Inside his head, he can see moments that do not belong to either Alka orher. His memories have jumbled up; he is present in them but the face of the girl is hazy.

“Wow, it’s been a while right?” she whistles, her eyes wayward, searching, groping at the memory.

“Yeah, it has been” he says. He knows there are reasons for not being ‘stagnant’ as he calls it. There are reasons why he won’t drive a car anymore. Someday, he will accept them for what they are.

“It’s stopped raining. Let’s get back to that bike of yours” she says getting up. Farid has no choice.

They step out, the road overflowing with water. There is an open manhole close by; Farid can see the water swirling inwards with great force. Cars are trying to avoid the large number of people that are still crowding the road. Most are back on their bikes and are trying to navigate through the traffic. The sun hasn’t set yet; an orange edge peeps from behind a silver-grey cloud. A cow stands in the corner, sizing them up, chewing cud. It seems to be the only creature that is unaffected by the rain.

“People should keep moving. Even if you are comfortable, one’s situation always needs to go through a shift. It leads to, as they say, ‘development of character’” Farid says, more to himself than her.

“If you are talking about me, maybe I have moved. Not job wise, but maybe in other ways. Perhaps movement is subjective” she corrects him. He looks at her. Suddenly, he feels like he is walking with someone that he has never known; a doppelganger pretending to be Alka. He doesn’t hate this Alka so he keeps shut.

Alka’s monster has retreated. Farid’s remark about their first date did it; it opened up a door that led some special light in, eliminating the darkness in which the monster had been surviving. She zoomed back into the days where life altering decisions did not need to be made every day, where research did not score your daily bread. Where winning love or losing it only ended up as canteen chatter or a late night discussion with the roommate. Where a heart that did not belong to her mattered more than her own. Where the hearts of parents were not involved. The monster is gone for now. It has disappeared and perhaps it won’t bother her again for a while.

They reach his bike. Alka pulls out the rag that is stuffed right over the speedometer and gives the seat a quick wipe.

“Keys” she says. Farid takes them out of his pocket and gives them to her like a robot. She takes the helmet from him and wears it. The straps clicks into place. Next, she turns the key and steps up on the foot pedal. With a quick move, she is sitting astride on the bike. Her feet reach the ground comfortably; Farid realizes for the first time that a lot of her beauty is thanks to her height. A little push and the bike is off the stand.

“Watch it. Careful” Farid stammers. A few people around them stop to stare. She does not reply. Alka gives a measured kick and the bike roars into life. “You got to kick it right” she says to herself in particular, but loud enough for Farid to hear it. Farid continues to stand and stare, dumbfounded. She puts it into gear and finally turns towards him,

“You got an extra helmet?”