We checked in our hotel, had our lunch and were asked to
gather at reception for the night safari.
It was my first experience in a real jungle. They led us
into the jungle via a tram and then it was a walking trail. With just two
youngies and rest all, around twenty, oldies, our troop was the slowest. I was wondering
what the individual cost for this safari would have been. Would it have been
cost and time efficient if I missed this safari and utilised the time working
on my incomplete thesis?? It wasn’t turning out to be as fascinating as they
pictured it in the brochure. All I could see were a few drowsy lions, few over
excited tapirs and a group of seemingly insomniac nocturnal animal species. Not
that I was irritated over losing my time to this night safari, the thing that
was getting on my nerves was miss Tishani making all sorts of howling,
growling, screeching, hooting sounds to, I guess amuse the oldies, which
apparently fulfilled its purpose.
We returned to our hotel after the night safari episode and
were instructed for the coming day’s schedule.
Day 2 was supposed to be a city tour. As I walked out of my
room, I saw Tishani in the lobby. And as usual she was there chatting with an
old aunty. That’s what I disrelished in her the most. She appeared to waste
much of her time in such pointless chats. Given a chance, I would have asked
her the effect of this useless energy wasting blabbering on her CGPA. None the
less, I tried to save myself from such time wasting endeavours as far as
possible.
A few locations for sight-seeing and then we were asked to
let ourselves in a market. From what I happened to overhear, the old folk wanted
to buy things from a never ending list for their children/grandchildren. I was
least interested in shopping. Hence I decided to sit by myself in the bus and
wait for them to return. Tishani left with them. I thanked God for the
momentary peace.
I plugged in my ear phones but before I could press play, I
saw Tishani coming back. She entered our bus and stood at the doorway.
“Nerdy, I want your help. Umm… actually, I need someone to
help me carry my shopping bags. So I was wondering if u could just…”.
I loathed her for addressing to me by that name. My mom used
to say, “Even when you are good at something, you shouldn’t blabber about it
publicly, it brings misfortune”.
“God forbid, if my grades drop down this semester, you’ll be
the sole reason”, I murmured to myself. But I said a “Yes” out of courtesy.
I followed her on a mute mode thereafter, until she
commenced to break the seemingly uncomfortable silence.
“Are you the only child of your parents nerdy?”
I stopped. She went a few steps ahead and on realising that
I wasn’t by her side, turned to me.
“Hey, what happened?”
“Miss Tishani, I am here to help you. It might be important
for you to know that calling me by that name will push me to break this deal of
helping you. So what do you propose??”
“Oh..oh..ok ner.. eee sorry.. Aman... Aman. Yes, I mean no…
I mean ok... I’ll be cautious.”
“Comforting that’ll be, and ‘yes’ is the answer to your
question”.
She led me into something around 62 shops, shopped around 18
different items, attempted to take my opinion for some; which I guess, seeing her dull expressions;
didn’t seem to help. Whatever it was, as soon as I thought my sufferings were
about to end, came a blow when she said, “Now it’s time to shop for myself”.
I was awestruck at this masterpiece of God. “What must’ve
been his expectations when he created this girl?”, I thought.
“Don’t worry Aman, I sense your discomfort, just a few
cosmetics. I promise less than 20 minutes”.
“Thanks for the concern, I am ready to suffer”, was all I
could say.
She walked into a cosmetic shop, before I could follow her
in; I received a call from home. Indian mothers are ever so concerned about
their children; they fire a series of questions at you as soon as you pick the
call up. As I hung up the phone after answering all her concerning questions, I
heard Tishani calling my name. I moved in. She turned towards me asking, “Is
the lipstick too bright?”
I was taken aback by her impeccable beauty. Her lips
literally seemed no less than rose petals under the effect of the bright red
lipstick. It was just perfect.
“Aman, I am waiting for a reply”, she said.
“Yep, yep… I mean yes.. I mean no… not too bright. It’s
perfect”, I said stammering.
“You sure?”
“Yes, of course”.
It was time to return back to our bus. I helped her carry
her bags. But I couldn’t resist looking at her once in a while in admiration. When strands of her hair tried to hide her
lips, I was tempted to ask her to reposition them, but was afraid to be taken
otherwise. So I chose not to comment or compliment.
When we were back to
the hotel, I had my dinner ordered to my room. And as the day had been tiring,
I went to bed.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Day 3
I woke up hearing my phone ring. It was an unknown number.
“Hello, whose this?”.
“Aman, it’s me, Tishani. We’ve to leave for Kuala Lumpur in
an hour, so I was wondering if we could have our breakfast together.”
Good grief, how did she get my phone number? I’ll have to be
a lot more cautious; I told to myself.
“Umm..hmm..25 minutes, cafeteria”.
“I’ll be waiting”, came the reply.
I got ready and was at the cafeteria on time. In these 25
minutes however I tried to develop theories on what was wrong with the girl. Why
would she want my company? Given that she had stolen my number, was good at
making wildly grunting/howling noises, perhaps I was being smuggled to a human
trafficking gang.
That was one of the most unlikely yet convincing theories
that I stumbled upon.
This girl didn’t seem to respect my time. I couldn’t see her
at the cafeteria. I selected a table and sat there waiting for her. I took out
my phone to call her, but then heard her voice.
“Here we are Aman, come join us”.
As I stood up to looked past her, I could see around 36-40
great old tour companion of ours. So it was going to be a community breakfast. Living
in a nuclear family, this one thing was something I didn’t appreciate much. Of course
she didn’t mention this on the phone which made me feel awkward as I wasn’t
mentally prepared for this. But considering that my walking away would have
been against the social protocol and would have looked insulting, I chose to
sit down quietly.
All throughout the breakfast, I got to hear different
stories from each couple about their lives, each one being more confusing and
complicated than the other; their life experiences, each involving more thrill
than the previous person’s narration; their love stories, each involving more
struggle than the previous person’s story. Hearing all that two things were
clear to me, one that this was the heaviest breakfast I ever had as it involved
so many stories, emotions and thrill topping my ordered cheese grill; and
second I was a failure till date to understand and involve myself in the social
paradigm that people of my race seem to display so well. “Ask me for a summary
for the past half an hour and I’ll never be able to provide it”, I said to
myself. However, a few blinks at Tishani made me believe that she seemed to gel
in really well with the group. By this time she was familiar with everyone’s
first name and … Good lord, socializing appeared to be one of her strongest
subjects.
We left for Kuala Lumpur past our breakfast; rest of our day
being majorly spent in travelling, checking in our hotel and having a community
meal once again towards its end.
go to : http://ahirraoakshay2020.blogspot.in/2014/05/the-time-travel-part-3.html
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