Hide and Seek

July 27 2011

Tring Tring! The alarm clock stretched its wretched mouth wide open, to coincide with my yawns! Sleep is a strange companion! It does not soothe you with its presence when you need it most, but is always there when you expect it the least. This morning was stranger though! I so wanted to get up and rush to the airport but my body and my mind were not ready for the effort!

 ‘No snoozing this time, I need to get up’, I thought to myself, putting an end to the internal duel between reason and desire. ‘I cannot afford to miss my flight at any cost’, a tiny voice within my head, reminded me.

 I quickly got ready and managed to gobble a few Bourbons. Thanks to the dull beeping of my phone, I was reminded that I had forgotten to carry the most important thing: The Gift. I quickly ran to my bed-room and put the nicely wrapped gift in my bag. I am so proud of this gift!

The Call-Taxi Guy was already waiting at the gate. God knows how many times he had cursed me for being late by a precious few minutes that could cost him a well-paying passenger!

 Reaching Chennai Airport in the morning is as easy and quick as going for a walk in your neighbourhood gardens. Evenings, though, are a different ball game altogether as one has to reckon with the obnoxious traffic menace due to the Metro Rail constructions. So, I breathed a sigh of relief and happiness when I reached the airport at 5.30am sharp.

My tickets said that I was one of the lucky few who manage to bag a window seat, despite booking at the very last moment. Security check did not take much time and I had roughly an hour. Hoping to exploit my good luck further, I rushed to the Snack-Bar and treated myself to the sugary warmth of freshly prepared Hot Chocolate.

 I managed to send a short text message to my mom: ‘Reached Amma! About to board’, to which she replied ‘Take care, love you loads and call once you reach’. Mothers are always so concerned about everything. No matter how old you are and where you go, a mother’s love is the only constant that stays by your side, through thick and thin, through sunshine and storm, through it all!

As I walked out of the Snack Bar, walking leisurely on the plush marble of the airport floor, The Higginbothams Book store caught my attention. I stepped up my pace and opened the door to huge collection of paperbacks and hard covers. I blitzed through the display of the latest best sellers and found nothing catchy. The adjacent rack proclaimed to offer some books by Indian writers. I have always been fascinated by Indian writing because it is so easy to associate and relate it to your life! So, there was this one book that seemed interesting. ‘P.S – Now, I am hiding. Let him seek’.....Strictly no clues by Inara Malik

The title attracted me and I decided to buy the book on a whimsical impulse. It was comforting to have gotten something to do in the flight. The FlyQuick flights are normally quite boring; they do not offer any entertainment and most of the flyers are normally well equipped with their own arrays of tablets, Kindles, I-pods and whatever is the latest that technology has to offer. It is no surprise that I had forgotten to charge my Tablet. I am usually absent minded and careless in such matters! ‘Keep calm and read this book’, I thought to myself.

The window seat 15A awaited me in all its promising glory! The Pre-Flight Safety demonstrations no longer amuse me, as airplanes have now become my second home. What is quite amusing is the fact that I can repeat most of the instructions for the passengers, as though I were a crew member myself! It is a side effect of flying. Another side effect that no longer bothers me is the disturbing whir of the engine as the plane takes off, propelled on God knows how many litres of fuel and how many mumbled prayers from first time flyers! So, when the flight took off, I had already jumped into the inviting whirlpool of black ink on the snow white pages of the book.

The blurb was nicely written:

“Taara meets Rounak on an anonymous chat website. Rounak’s life is full of snarls and Taara’s virtual presence helps Rounak grow. This virtual world soon becomes a major part of their real world.

Rounak wants to take this relationship to a new level but Taara is hesitant. Taara is very happy to limit herself to this virtual world that offers plenty of space to imagine.

Life throws an interesting twist in their lives while the two are happy in the virtual world. Will they survive this chaos? Will they meet each other in person?

Read and find out the answers for yourselves!”

The first chapter started with a quote on co-incidence by Einstein: ‘Co-incidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous’. Interesting, I mused, and continued to read further.

Page 1, Page 2 and Page 3 followed, and I paused for a moment. A strong sense of déjà-vu enveloped me all of a sudden and I felt as if those strange words on those strange pages were actually familiar somehow!

 I put in a lot of effort to recall, but my memory did not co-operate and I felt squeamish.

As I turned over to the next page, recollection, like a jet of ice cold water, hit me in the face!

I was shocked to see that this book had my conversation with Smriti. The Velvet Cake was the trigger which opened up the rigid doors of past. Smriti was the one I had not met. I don’t even know how she looks, but she had escorted me to a whole new world of imagination! A Utopian world, a paradise that had belonged to both of us, once upon a time. It feels ‘like it just happened yesterday’ but it’s been almost four years now.

I sank into deep thought and tried to ‘connect the dots’ (Smriti’s favorite phrase), but things were a blur. “Who Is Inara? Has Smriti herself written this book?” so many questions galloped through my mind, with no answers in sight!

I flipped the page to whee it said:

About the Author :

Inara Malik is the bestselling author of ‘I Let Him Go’ and a spiritual student and teacher. This is her second book which is slightly based on her own life. Through her writing and coaching, she uplifts people and shares her innate wisdom to help others reconnect with who they really are and become all they desire to be. Visit her blog for more blog posts atmybestfriendispen.blogspot.in.

The book had no personal information about Inara and that meant I had to contact the publishers. There was a possibility that Smriti used ‘Inara Malik’ as her pen name. I got back to reading and thought of completing the book before entertaining any further thoughts.

It seemed as if I was re-living every experience as I read our story. It all seemed so fresh and the initial chapters brought a huge smile on my face. I was blushing all through!

This poem had made my day:

Poem for You Ritwan!

He is
the only one
whom I adore
my moon and sun

Smiles and laughter
showing of whites
happily ever after
Ever so polite

Good feelings
I never felt before
His greetings
I wanted more

Now he’s mine
Forever and always
Watch him shine
Throughout our days!

How can I forget the lessons she taught me! Carpe Diem (Latin for “seize the day”) was our word. We owned it together! Her text messages always had an inspiring post script which highlighted a life-lesson. It would often leave me delving further into that thought, sometimes even for weeks.

 There was a time when I was exceedingly obsessed with perfection. It often lead to despair and misery. She fathomed it and taught me a concept that I have always carried with me, successfully applying it in my every-day life. ‘Think WabiSabi’. It is not the spicy-green horseradish-like stuff you eat with Sushi! It’s a Japanese aesthetic that depicts beauty as imperfections. “Imperfections make our life beautiful. Embrace them Ritwik! Love yourself inspite of your shortcomings, because we are all perfect in our own imperfections!” her words still echo in the valleys of my heart!

In chapter 9 she has written about the day I helped her solve quite a few problems at one go. I was glad that I could help her and was relieved that I was able to do something for her. I shared stories of people who inspired me and it in-turn inspired her to move on. It was not surprising that the list included Smriti. I could actually feel her smile.

The book ends with the title ‘P.S – Now, I am hiding. Let him seek’ and it promises a sequel. It seemed as if the book was written so that she could reach me. She sought me through the book! The realization hit hard. I could be so sure because she knew that I read every novel written by Indian authors.

There had been a point in our lives where it had become quite difficult. The virtual world suppressed our freedom, suffocated our hopes and it was affecting our careers. On realizing this, she asked me to promise never to write to her again. The promise was accompanied with the belief that if we were meant to be, life would find a way to bring us back together. Annoyed by her demand and belief, I hid myself after leaving a message. ‘Seek me yourself, I am hiding’.

There was no way she could contact me after that as we both never shared any other information as it was her wish to limit ourselves to the virtual world. But why did she want to re-connect now?

With a barrage of questions troubling me, I reached Delhi. The wedding home was very well decorated and the wedding lacked absolutely nothing! I gifted the special hand-made toy to my friend. The toy was quite unique and customized for the couple. A short manual gave all the instructions. On holding the toy, a question would pop in which required both the husband and the wife to answer. Thus, the toy would help them to know each other quite well in all aspects.

I used my free-time in Delhi to contact the publisher of the book. The receptionist was quite adamant and did not give me any information about the author. It was part of their agreement with the author that they would not give out private information and that meant I had to find another way to reach Smriti.

I grabbed the book and started reading again with the intention of searching for some clues. Numbers

and fancy words fascinated her! But I could make nothing out of the page numbers and the tricky words. The tag line ‘Strictly no rules’ was quite convoluting.

I opened my old-email account and tried sending a mail to Smriti, but the mail bounced. I browsed the chat history and it was amazing to read every chat we had had.

I returned home after a successful week. I had found a solution to the problem! But it required a lot of effort.

Fortunately, a good friend of mine agreed to publish my book and help me in this pursuit. You must have understood by now that I was going to write a book.

Thus, I would reach her because I also knew that she read every novel written by Indian writers! My book detailed every conversation of mine with Smriti. It included my perspective and extracts from my journal along with an imagined future of our story.

That was her plan. That was her plan! She knew I would write a sequel to her book.  My book got published and the very third day I got a call from her! There were no introductions or formalities. It was purely her style: Direct.

‘So you found me?’ Those were the first 4 words and I could feel a wide grin spread onto my face!

 ‘Yes I did’

 ‘You read my mind quite well, you wrote a sequel, haan?’

 ‘Yes I did’

‘Well, Life found a way’

 ‘Nope, we found a way’

And that’s how we met again!