Sometimes....

It’s a daily affair…returning late to my hostel. Yea yea delhi is not safe and especially not for a single young woman who’s all by herself, travelling mostly by auto. But somehow it inevitably gets pitch dark by the time I wrap up my shopping or on my way back from a friend’s place.
Nothing like relishing that fresh tangily citrus feeling of freedom where there’s none to inspect my moves, no one to question or ground me for returning home late. My eyes shine with that devilishly happy glint when I give that defiant look to the guards at the hostel gate who always look quizzically at my late returns. I’ve always smirked internally at my friends coz their boyfriends always tighten the leash around their neck so tight that they can never think of returning home late or so I’ve thought.

Yesterday incidentally my friend and I, inspite of our best efforts could manage to hail an auto only by 9.30pm when the roads were almost deserted.
It started pouring…there’s something about the way the rains have been wooing Delhi like a love sick bard showering its object of desire with one mushy poem after another,albeit in da form of copious rain drops...…I tell you, these monsoons are besotted with Delhi!

And so the most natural thing in the world happened, near the IIT crossroads, nice little sploshy puddles were grinning ear to ear spreading their bums comfortably in the zillion pot holes pockmarking the roads. Traffic from all four directions were snarling at each other & my auto was stranded in the doldrums. I relaxed back in my auto not even bothering to time how long it would take for the traffic to clear. My friend’s phone started ringing, she was anyway sitting poker straight, body taut…very very eager to return home, it was her boyfriend calling who sounded worried. In the pregnant musty silence of the innards of the auto, I could hear him ask huskily ‘where are you,baby?’ She said ‘ Im almost there, 5 mins’. He said ‘Should I bring the umbrella at the ber sarai bus-stop, you aren’t carryin any, remember?’ She agreed, almost relieved to have him escort her from the bus stop till their flat. Was it my imagination or did her flash flush with a glow in anticipation of meeting him or the thought of running into his protective arms really did light up her whole body?!

In my characteristic way, I was supposed to feel piqued and make a snide remark to her and my dialogue would have run its full course in this fashion- ‘So this is how dependant u’ve become! He has to walk you those 10 steps frm the stop till the flat,huh?’ ‘And look at him, its barely 10pm & hez fretting like a moth, as if women cant take care of themselves’ instead I heard myself say to her ‘ Accha hai, kuch logon ke liye toh poochne wala bhi koi nahi hai’….

I know I know, I sounded pathetic, like some bollywood tear stained character but it was at that point in my life…I felt a strange hollowness, the orphaning feeling knocked the wind of independent fierceness off my sails….I realized I was like those who partied late nights at discotheques, not coz they were happy or lucky doing it but because they had no one to come back home to….