Regular office day (not near a window) seems mundane!
It’s 12’o noon and a regular day at office. Half day is passed by and few hours are left to finish her day at office. She takes her beautifully painted magenta colored coffee mug by India circus, in her hands. The warmth of the cup relieves her from chilling office cubicle. Rain pours down from the sky, and mist covers the window by her seat as she sips her favorite rose green tea. She isn’t fond of green tea but she isn’t fond of masala tea or coffee either.
She looks out of the window from the 12th floor of her office building. She sees a man running in the rain. She sees a bunch of colleagues going to the famous sutta corner of cyber hub. She sees a sari clad girl walking slow, taking each step carefully and protecting her saree from getting spoiled in rain. Soon her mind wanders in her own world and she is drifted to her thoughts.
Thoughts that come rushing to her every now and then. Though she works in a big MNC and she is always surrounded by lot of people around her but she still feels lonely. She escapes from eyes of her colleagues and start scribing something in her notebook. No one knows her habit of scribing. No one ever noticed. At least she thought so. Unaware of the fact that there is always someone watching you and admiring you for who you are.
She keeps her mug down and picks up her pen. She is fond of pens. Those fancy pens that flow as smooth as butter on paper. Every time she visits a stationary shop, she admire at the shine of those fancy pens but their price leave her crestfallen. The one she is holding is a regular smooth flow ball pen. She likes it too but someday she wish to buy one of those fancy pens.
She stares at blank paper of her thin spiral notepad, the one that employees get at office and a check on count of it for an employee is kept. She stares at the blank paper for a long time, the noise, the people, and everything around her has come to a standstill for her and she starts writing something on it. There are no thoughts in her mind just her pen and pain; and she starts scribing whatever comes to her mind. Most of the times her writing comes that way. It just come from nowhere and makes a perfect sense to her, describing her solace.
She leans down and keeps her head on her left hand on which she is wearing her father’s Fossil watch that has her father’s initials inscribed on it. She is a watch lover too. No, she doesn’t like fancy watches but she is fond of simple watches made by watchmakers. She wishes to wear world’s best watchmakers’ watches on her hand. She watches her hand flowing on the paper and writing words. The curves of words gives her immense pleasure. These words and curves belong to her, she thinks. Her love for writing is from her childhood days that started from first poem which she wrote for her mother. She had a flair for creating verses but travelling made her a story teller. She now enjoys creating and writing stories. She tries to find stories in every moment, in every person she meets.
When she is wrapped in the blanket of her thoughts and spilling out words from her mind, there’s a guy sitting right across her seat and watching her. He is a shy guy from a different state with a different language but the same fire for travelling is burning in his heart as hers. He doesn’t know if she too is fond of travelling but he is swayed by her simplicity, her cotton kurtas and bindi that sticks between her bushy raw eyebrows.
Watch this section to know what unfolds in their lives.
I had no reasons to join this language course except for the fact that I was free and so was this course. Hell yeah! Sounds weird? Of course in today’s time a free language course sounds fishy. Why would they do that? Don’t they have enough students to learn their language? Or maybe nobody wants to learn Hungarian. Questions like this were banging in my head when a friend of mine helped me in getting enrolled for the course. My stars can’t thank him enough for this gesture of him. I hope he reads this. 🙂 Okay, so my first class which happened after around five days of the commencement of the course. Sigh! I hope you understand the pain of missing a language class, that too the elementary part, like missing Ka,Kha,Ga of Hindi class. Chuck! I was trying to be funny. Okay, so coming back to my first class, as I entered the class, I was shocked to see around hundred students (of all age group). Like students more than my father’s age. I liked it instantly. Prior to this, and I must admit that to my reluctance, my father and I learned Italian together. He somehow couldn’t give his exam but this made me know him better and his zeal for learning something new along with his struggles of remembering things. Anyway, coming back to the first class again (I have this habit of deviating from main topic) 😛 So, amidst all the students who were attending class from first day, I found myself lost in the pronunciation of the ‘magyar ábécé’ (Hungarian ABC). After that I wasn’t very regular with the classes but I kept trying learning it, missing some part, and then again picking it up from the next lesson. I didn’t made much friends at that time, I didn’t talk to anybody much. I came, attended the class, and went home. I don’t know that even after all this irregularity what kept me glued to this class.
So apart from my irregularities of classes, I was always regular at least with the events organized by Hungarian Cultural Centre. I hope the cultural people don’t read it. hiding face in palms I love exploring places, meeting new people, knowing about their culture. So attending events was like satiating my soul by knowing about their culture through powerpoint presentations, their music, songs and dance. And then of course snacks followed by events was like ‘icing on the cake’. Food makes a Punjabi happy! 😀 I have been to many events organized by various embassies but I found people here at this embassy very grounded and humble. Always smiling, talking to everybody, clicking pictures together and yes how can I forget mentioning Mr.Wilhelm’s (the director) wife preparing finger licking Hungarian delicacies for us. I mean who does that?
When everything got settled at my home, I rejoined the classes. Everything was changed this time. From hundred students to just fifteen were left. Now, I started talking to fellow students. They helped me in coping up with the syllabus. Tanár (teacher) helped me in understanding the lessons that I missed. Events were not happening much but this time I became almost (I was still missing some classes) regular with the classes. I now knew what kept me glued to this course and not leave it in between. It was because of our professor Ms.Margit Köves. Her patience and sweetness encouraged me to keep attending the classes. Wondering how? Well, as I said that I wasn’t regular with the classes so I didn’t know much of the things in the class but then she was always patient and never scolded me for not knowing the things. This motivated me to put more efforts to understand the things. She is from Hungary. No, I absolutely didn’t want to point out that she is not an Indian teacher. winks 😀 You got my point right! Right?
Finally, they met at a restaurant in CP. No holding hands, no hugs, no kisses; just a formal hello. Hiding her tears behind her smile, she asked him about his family and he asked her about her parents. There was an awkward silence. She still thought that Kabir would hold her hand and say “Zafu, let’s run away. Everything will be alright after some time”. This was just her thought. Kabir then broke the silence by saying that “I’m sorry. I feel guilty”. His voice wasn’t trembling. There were no tears rolling down from his eyes. Her mind drifted to his words which he said few weeks back with tears filled in his eyes. She was confused. Her heart was in a dilemma of trusting to what he said earlier or what he was saying now. She had been a good listener always. She kept listening to him. He just had one thing to say that we started on a condition. Condition, that if our parents will agree then only we will get married. She had lot to say but she wasn’t able to bring words out of her mouth. She kept listening. When Kabir was done saying whatever he wanted to say. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, “But ma never met me, Kabi. My age cannot make me less good or less kind. My age cannot make me a bad person. You could have at least made her meet me. This way I would have thought that you made efforts to keep the relationship. You moved on very easily. I once told you that I was like a bridge on the river that stayed and you were like a passenger who crossed that bridge. My words were true. I loved you, Kabi. And a part of me will always love you.”
Lately, I’ve learned that everything we do is an art. There’s art in sleeping, talking, speaking, walking and in every action that we do. I’ve also come to believe that each of us as a human being is a piece of art in itself, created by the Supreme power. And we all are beautiful in our own way, irrespective of our shape, color and caste.
When Zafirah was small, under the winter sun of every 26th of the January month, her father use to take her to the terrace of the house and show her flying planes, the fighter ones. Since then the flying planes in the open blue sky and sound of it has always fascinated her. She smiles whenever she sees the one in sky!
“Hello”, said the stranger. Bringing book down from her eye level and looking with amusement at stranger! There was a tall, fair, slender man with unkempt hair. He belonged to a foreign land! She said, “Hi”. “Going to Kochi?”, asked Stranger. No! I’m traveling to Delhi, replied Zafirah. Later realizing her mother’s words of not giving any details to strangers. He is a foreigner (she thinks), Mom said to be careful from strangers from India. She laughs on her thought and starts reading again. “What are you reading?”, asked stranger. Ohh! It is Forty rules of Love by Elif Shafak, replied Zafirah. Hmm! Another love story!, stranger mumbled. “Oh no no! It’s not a love story. I mean, yes it is a love story, but it is about eternal love.”, said Zafirah. Aah! “Eternal Love”, said stranger laughing. “Where are you from”, asked Zafirah. “I’m John from Land of Midnight Sun, Finland”, replied Stranger. Wow!, exclaimed Zafirah. Her little eyes filled with excitement. She wanted to know more about Finland, but kept quite instead. She didn’t want to show her excitement to John.
