There was nothing left to do. The rain started to make patterns on the window. The drops moved about the glass like sperm cells. The conductor switched off the dirty yellow lights and the blue screen of a vibrating mobile emerged. Somewhere in the darkness a bag unzipped, a packet of chips opened and an empty stomach mumbled an unknown idiom.
“Appupan is sick!! I had to leave” a feminine murmur broke the rhythmic silence. “He is in the hospital now. I didn’t get time to call u. I left in haste”
The range kept fluctuating in the last two bars and the bus broke free from any possible mobile range. A conversation was broken and an empty packet of chips was thrown out into the rain.
She switched off her phone. She knew that he didn’t like her leaving without saying a word. “Why can’t he understand?” She wouldn’t switch it on .She will blame it on the network. By then he will understand and probably miss her. He must have felt bad. But he was busy when she called and she didn't have much time either. Appupan seems to be in a pretty bad shape. His third attack. He won‘t live through it to buy her another birthday gift.
She searched for the ipod in her handbag. A cheap yellow handbag with a million tiny circular mirrors. It was 7.45pm and everybody in the bus seems to be fast asleep. She couldn’t sleep. Will I be able to see Appupan for one last time? Will he die tonight and make me walk into a crowd tomorrow morning. Will Arun miss talking to me tonight? Does he still call his old school friend who is doing her B-Pharm in Pune? She switched on her phone. Perhaps he had already sent a message.
She kept staring at the cell phone preparing itself to receive a network. Suddenly she started missing Arun. One new message appeared on the screen. “Mega Offer!!! HURRY!!! Recharge for 100 and get 175 talk time. NO validity!!!”
Irritated, she deleted it. Switching the phone off is a very bad idea. What if someone calls to tell her about Appoopan? Did someone already call and she could not be reached. She called her Dad.
“Appa, is everything alright???”
“ Your Grandpa is critical. Where r u now??”
The bus slowed down to a local dhaba near the highway. “At the Karnataka border somewhere? They halted for dinner”
She got out of the bus. The place had a very different stench. Maybe that’s how a cigarette soaked in Urine would smell. She walked into the small shop near the dhaba.
Her eyes scanned the place for a branded bottle of packaged drinking water. They had only ‘NEW GANGA’ mineral water packaged in Gangothri ‘the mouth of Ganga ’
She looked around for a rest room. The men had already started to do their business on the other side of the road. Standing side by side and pretending as if they were invisible. She pretended not to see them but she read the board that was displayed on the wall which had suddenly found itself drenched again after the drizzle.
“PLEASE no URINATION here. ONLY ANIMAL LIKE MEN PASSES URINE HERE”.
She smiled at the poor man who wrote it. He must have asked a hundred people for the right words and finally ended up with this.
She climbed back into her seat. One missed call. He had called. She called him back.
“I was out buying mineral water….no there was no range… I was talking to Dad.” The bus climbed back on the road like a tortoise climbing up wooden stairs.
“Don’t argue with me now.... He is serious....What’s your problem???”, She hung up the phone. She didn't want to talk to him. He (of all the people) should understand. She put the phone into her purse. The conductor switched off the light. She switched off her phone. The cold crept in through one of the front windows that someone had opened to throw up the undigested dhaba food.
It was cold now. She started missing him. She searched for her phone. She switched it on. She knew that he would be tying to reach her. There was no range. She didn't switch it off. She imagined his arms around her.
It was 5.30 in the morning. The vibrating phone woke her up. She knew he would call. She looked at the screen. It was not him. It was her brother.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Haripad maybe..”
She could hear the wailing sound of her mother and knew why her brother woke her up. “Appoopan left us…”
“I will reach by 6.30. “ She hung up the phone and looked out through the window. She was not feeling sad. The phone rang again. It was him this time. She couldn't stop the tear drops that rolled down her skinny pink cheeks. “Appopan left me” she sobbed into the phone.
To him she could cry.
An illusion of a shoulder to cry upon provided by the prepaid network.
