PART 1
As the routine would hold, Sudha would wake up at 7am, get freshened up and stand leaning against the window sill with her day’s first cup of coffee. Why day’s first? Because Sudha was a coffee lover... yes a ‘lover’, not an ‘addict’. She always thought the word ‘addict’ added a negative hue to her scared love for coffee. “I’m a loveerrrr...not an addict!” she would mischievously correct Shekhar every time he glared at her filled to brim coffee mugs.
Her stretch of the last syllable “errrrr” would inadvertently put a broad smile on Shekhar’s face. Once, after Sudha’s such antics, Shekhar had teased her, “Crazy woman...one of your students should see you doing such antics. Then they will know, THE REAL YOU!”
Sudha who was holding a cup in her hand then, kept it aside and walked towards him with made up angry face and even lovingly put her slender arms around his neck. Coming closer, she whispered in his ears “Well, my craziness is only for you my love...”
The warmth of her breath falling on his ears, her beating heart, which he could feel on his back as she embraced him, her soft skin running against his coarse manly arms, intoxicated him. Lifting her arms up, he pulled her swiftly to the front. Looking into her light brownish eyes, he said, “God...your eyes...they are so abnormal!” He said it with such love that it was hard for her not to take it as a compliment.
She smiled and replied, “Yes...you always say that. They are light brown, by the way.”
They spoke all this being so close to each other, their lips almost touching one another. Fidgeting in his grip, trying to let herself go, she said, “My coffee...it’s getting cold...!”
“Hmmm...Don’t worry! Things are getting heated up here darling...nothing’s getting cold for a while now” he replied, eyes still fixed at her, a playful smile on his lips.
Sudha giggled like a teenage girl, knowing quite well what was to come next.
Time flies when you are experiencing love at its most passionate form and for them each hour felt like a second, leaving them wanting for more.
The coffee mug still lay on that stand where she had kept in the morning. It was late in the afternoon when finally they had decided to wake up. Decided, not by them but by their grumbling stomachs which were absolutely in need of some food.
That was a morning which now felt like another lifetime to her.
Today, Sudha still held a coffee mug in her hand; her eyes were still ‘abnormally’ light brown. But neither she nor Shekhar took any notice of them.
Shekhar, who was working till two at night, was still on the bed, stomach first. Having nowhere to go, his routine had gone for a toss. No fixed time of getting up, no fixed time of sleeping, no time of eating. It seemed as if he was living a bachelor’s life.
It was around quarter to ten when Shekhar ambled into the living room, checking his phone. He sat on the sofa, slid his phone to his left, grabbed the remote which was lying like an orphan beside him and switched the TV on.
The news showed the visuals of hospitals, doctors, grocery stores and also of the people who were still loitering on the streets despite the lockdown, US... CHINA...ESSENTIALSERVICES...LOCK-DOWN...ECONOMY...HEALTH CARE, these words rung in his head incessantly, similar to hovering of a stubborn bee, refusing to leave him alone.
Annoyed, he switched off the TV. With the TV’s noise suddenly ceasing, he could hear the bangles clanking. Sudha was in the kitchen. He desperately needed strong cup of ginger tea.
Knowing that he wouldn’t get it ready made, he walked into the kitchen. Sudha was making Poha.
Standing a little away from her, he glanced through the utensils and shelves compartment, trying to find all that was necessary to make the tea.
The kitchen wasn’t that spacious. So, it was always an inconvenience when two people had to work there simultaneously. However, things become further inconvenient when two people who wished to run away from each other, had to work simultaneously.
Sudha well aware of his craving quickly switched off the gas and walked out of the kitchen to her study desk, pretending to do some work. And Shekhar knowing very well why she left, started preparing his ginger tea, fuss free.
Once she knew he was done, she went in again and finished making Poha. Serving one plate, she heated milk and made one more cup of coffee, took her breakfast along with it and sat at her study desk, in the bedroom.
Sudha was a history teacher in a private school. Even though history was her love, she knew that many students did not share her love and also wondered how someone can love history, let alone makes a career out of it.
“SOOO BORING!!” they would complain.
So, her primary aim in the class was always to make history interesting and put an end to the dreary way of instructing the subject which was carried on for centuries.
Moreover, due to the lockdown, lot of exams were postponed. However, for children ‘POSTPONED’ ALWAYS SOUNDED MORE LIKE ‘CANCELLED’. So, she had announced in the whatsapp group that she will email the assignments and then will have doubt clearing sessions and some discussion sessions online. This was her way of keeping them in the study mode.
Call it her enthusiasm for teaching or the singular aspect of her life which maintained her sanity, her days were now occupied by making the assignments, taking online sessions, reading books, cooking, cleaning, doing all the household chores. All in all, she had taught herself to mind her own business.
Shekhar on the other hand, had found his escape in his projects, his presentations, his conference calls and his TV.
Sudha cooked when she felt like it, Shekhar ate when he felt like it. Sudha occupied the bedroom, Shekhar occupied the living room. Sudha minded her business and Shekhar did the same.
This makes one think that when there are so many places to find an escape, then how and why one would go the uncomfortable places of life and relationships. Why would one want to tread on the treacherous waters when there are always safe and dry shores to hide ourselves? And if everyone finds their own escapes, then where will the relationship go?
Without saying a single word to each other, they had developed a system to function peacefully under one roof, without coming in each other’s way.
But PEACE, like many other aspects of the universe is an evasive illusion. It comes and goes when it pleases, no matter how many precautions you take, how many measures you practice. If it doesn’t want to stay...it doesn’t, leaving you with all the buried, suppressed pain, waiting to surface once again.
TO BE CONTINUED...
