The Last Meeting

Those same lanes which she had crossed for four years looked so unfamiliar now. The tea shack had given way to a swanky restaurant. Outside was a red and white board listing all delicacies available- South Indian, North Indian, Fresh Fruit Juices, Continental- you name it and you can have it. The simple omelette-bun which she had enjoyed during her college days was given amiss though. The plastic stools had been removed and in its place were wooden tables and chairs, neatly arranged in groups of two and four.

Nilima sat on one of these chairs and waited for Ashok to come. None of them knew why they had chosen this place to meet yet this was the place which came to their mind when they had decided to meet.

Nilima and Ashok were classmates. During the four years they were together they had moved on from being mere acquaintances to friends to lovers to live-in partners and to acquaintances again. They never knew how they fell in love with each other and how they fell out of it. They were so different in their personalities- Nilima was outgoing , extrovert, a sexy girl while Ashok was the exact opposite of her- unassuming, introvert and ‘always lost in his own thoughts’ types. When they had announced that they were seeing each other, none of their friends could believe it the first time. Moreover when they had decided to move in together, their friends were more surprised than happy.

From sharing assignments to sharing beds, they had come a long way…and it was on that shared bed itself that Nilima had slept with Aakash nights after nights while Ashok spent his nights with Radhika. Neither of them knew what the other was doing. Each thought that he was the guilty one. Burdened by a guilt conscious they stopped seeing each other eye to eye until one fine day they decided to move out of each others’ lives. There were no questions to be asked, no answers expected, no matters to be sorted between the two of them.

Nilima went abroad to pursue her passion for photography while Ashok stayed back in Delhi and made a career out of advertising. No one knew what happened to the other. There were so many people entering and exiting their lives that the memory of this relationship was pushed to some corner of their minds like some out of fashion clothes in the wardrobe which are there but still not there.

That afternoon Nilima having finished her photo shoot in Delhi and having some time left to wile away was browsing through her facebook wall page. With nothing great to do and her flight delayed for ten hours due to fog, she took a movie compatibility test and bingo…he was back ; smiling there, sharing 100% movie compatibility with her. Why had she forgotten to ‘unfriend’ him and why has he not done that?...like the many questions which one asks oneself but cannot find an answer to, she was unable to find an answer to this too.

Suddenly the chat box popped up on her screen. Ashok said ‘Hi’. Nilima said ‘Hi’ too.

Somewhere deep down she felt something strange, something hitherto unknown; it was not grief, it was not happiness, it was not love- it was something inexplicable, an unknown, unexplored emotion.

After the initial pleasantries, he finally geared up the courage and asked for a meeting ‘may be near the college tea shack’. Nilima had four hours at her disposal excluding the time she would need to catch her flight on time.

***

The watch on her wrist showed six o’clock. She had already been sitting at the restaurant now for almost three and a half hours with Ashok nowhere in sight. Two cups of cappuccino and a chicken sandwich down her stomach she did not even have the appetite to stay any longer. Meanwhile she also had been averting the glances of the restaurant cashier, who in between changing channels on the large plasma television hung on the wall, gave her weird looks. She decided to pay the bill and leave.

***

Halfway through her check-in queue, the breaking news blared on the plasma television of the restaurant ‘Man killed in a car accident due to poor visibility on the road’.