Happy for you

This post is an exercise I have been trying for some time now. I wrote whatever sentence came to my mind. No editing. I did not plan on any plot, no ending in mind. This is just to see what I can come up with, by letting my mind go free. I enjoyed it.

"I'll give you 30 rupees for that"

"No no! Fixed price madam, 50 rupees."

"Come on anna, 35"

"What are you going to gain by saving 15 rupees...fixed price madam"

"I am not being unreasonable. 35."

"Ok, give me 40"

"Fine, what choice do I have? Here you go"

She got the pair of earrings and started walking away, a sense of satisfaction traveling through her veins creating a sense of victory in its wake. The joy of haggling for 15 rupees for a nice pair of earrings that you really did not need but want to get nevertheless is unequaled. It is a girl thing.

She was about to cross the road when she heard her name being called out.

"Harini! Harini, here, behind you on your right!"

She turned and saw Prakash. 

"Oh no, not this guy" she thought.

"Oh hi!" she smiled. That smile was reserved for such emergency situations. She felt like kicking herself for stopping to buy those stupid earrings. She would have been on the bus by now. 

"Long time no see. How have you been?"

"Good good." she smiled again. She hoped the conversation would wither away. She wanted to exchange 2 more sentences after which she could safely say that she would like to talk more but she really had to leave. Polite, but not interested. That would be the perfect way to leave. Only if life were that easy.

"I was actually going to call you now. How is work?"

"Going good, how is work for you?"

Great, 2 exchanges down, one more to go.

"Going good. Actually I am thinking of getting married and settling down now."

Oh God, now I have to be polite, exclaim that it is great to hear that and ask him something about it. One more exchange of pleasantries. Fine.

"That is great! All the best!" 

There, polite but not interested. Now dude, just say thank you so that I can leave.

"Do you remember your friend Ramaa from school? We are in a relationship now. We are getting married next month." He gushed.

Aww, I am sure that is the most important thing to you but I am really not interested. 

"Oh yes I remember her. It is very nice to hear that you guys are a couple. Do convey my best wishes to her too. We have not been in touch for a while."

"Oh, you have not spoken to her in a while, isn't it? We talk about you often. Wait, let me call her. She would love to talk to you"

What? No no, this cannot be happening to me.

"Oh, it is ok. She must be busy. I'll find her on Facebook and talk to her later. Don't disturb her now"

"No no, she has resigned her job and is at home. She will be thrilled to talk to one of her old school friends."

Oh man, why do I get caught in these situations! I should have just got her phone number and said that I would call her later.

He dialled Ramaa's number.

"Hi sweetie, guess what, I am with Harini. Yes, yes. I just saw her here. Yes, I was just telling her about us. Do you want to talk to her?"

She cursed her own politeness and took the phone grudgingly, while maintaining a neutral smile plastered on her face.

"Hi Ramaa! How are you?...Yes, I am good....Yes, he told me. Very happy for you guys, congrats...Oh no no, why would I mind. We are old friends but we have not been in touch for a while now. Why would I mistake you for not telling me...Seriously, I am happy for you. My best wishes to both of you...Yes, I'll definitely try to come...uhh, ok yes, I'll come..Nice talking to you, let me give the phone to Prakash"

He took the phone, went a little further, spoke to Ramaa for a few seconds and came back.

Ok, are we done here? I really must leave now.

"It was nice meeting you after a long time, Prakash. Congrats again. I need to leave now..I have some work."

"Thanks Harini..." He hesitated "Thank you for talking to Ramaa. It really means a lot to both of us."

"Hey, no problem. Bye!"

"Bye" He looked very thankful and relieved.

She was certainly relieved to walk away.

She rushed to the bus stop and got into her bus. She took out her headphones and started listening to her favorite song. She had not listened to it for years. She got a text message. It was from Prakash:

"Thank you again Harini, for being so kind. It is really nice of you to be happy for me and Ramaa. I am so sorry about everything, again. I regret all the unhappiness I caused in our marriage. I hope our divorce was the right thing for you too."

Of course it was the right thing. She deleted the text and changed the song.

The Chemistry of Love

One lesson that I have learned in life is that people in love are opportunistic. Not judging them, but I don't like it very much when they use me.

Do I sound mean? Yes? Yes, I am like that :)

The Chemistry of love

I am not going to name names, but just assign alphabets as aliases for real people. Let us do this like a chemistry equation. Just so that it sounds like it makes sense. I used to love chemistry at school (the subject). The one that existed between my fellow students - not much, in cases where they tried to use me.

Assume X and Y are a couple, or hope to be one. The best solution would be for X to ask Y out or vice versa and get on with their lives. But no, that did not happen very often. X and Y looked at each other. They stared at each other. They shot sidelong looks. Y specialized in executing the sweeping glance covering the entire class but lingering a few seconds more on X. Y would start laughing suddenly when we were having a serious conversation about the length of the ribbon on M's plaits that day. But that did not ruffle me because it just meant X crossed her peripheral vision with his hand on his sidekick's shoulder. I noticed all these things, because I was jobless like that.

X would visit the temple near school, because she wanted to see Y playing cricket in the ground nearby. She'd pull me along, because then we were two pious girls talking in the temple and not one girl gaping at a guy. The interesting fact was that I was the one who used to talk, and listen. She was busy checking him out.

We were the last ones to leave tution because then he could saunter over and make fun of ME so that she could laugh. Huh.

We were the only people to have lunch in the classroom so that he could ogle at her from outside.

I could not skip the boring field trip because then people would talk if she walked alone with him.

She cut my call (her call would have woken me up) the minute she saw his second call and expected me to wait by the phone.

And the conversations we had? They were always laced with "You know what that fellow said?" "I told him..." "He is so funny" "I hate him" "These guys n all..." You know how it is. One gets to nod and approve. Always. Even if you were bored. Even if you also wanted a chance to bore other people. (Yes, I got my chance now! I have a blog to bore people.)

What happened to these couples? Some of them got married and that was the last I heard of them. Some of them moved on and got married to other people. It does seem funny to me now. I can imagine how I must have looked when I was treated like a monkey in the game of throw and catch. Very funny.

So you ask me where is the chemistry part? Here:

X and Y's courtship should have been a simple reaction like this:

Unfortunately for me, they chose to make it a reaction that required the presence of a dummy catalyst, like this:

In case you don't know what a catalyst is, "A catalyst is a subtance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction, but which is left unchanged by the reaction."

I am still single. That says it all :)