This chapter from the short story follows Chapter I.
My face was flushed from
its prolonged exposure to the blazing sun. I had been standing at the bus stop
for almost half an hour, waiting for a bus that would take me home. Neither the
heat nor the wait bothered me. If I was restless it was only because I was
going to meet him today!
I
reached home at half past six and hit the shower. I stuffed a mini-granola bar
into my mouth and tightened my shoelaces. I was all set to make my first
appearance in front of him!
It
was 7:30 when I reached the park just outside his office. He would leave at
eight. The buildings had two exit gates, 20 metres apart. The only way to run
into him was to keep running from one exit point to another. I took off my
scrunchy and retied my hair. I did some stretches to warm up before the run
that would last only God knew how long. I started running at 7:55. The sun had
set by then, and this made my task of identifying him even more difficult. I
ran faster as I saw the steady flow of office goers crowding up the street. It
would be 8:30 in a few minutes and I’d miss him again! My pace dropped to a
walk. And I screened every man that walked my way. It was 8:35. I felt
defeated. I went tired to the park and sat on a green patch of grass. My white
T-shirt was damp with my sweat, but I wouldn’t let my spirit be. I was going to
try and find where he lived.
I
knew where to start. I got up and started for Tipsy Feet. The
doorman eyed me with contempt. I ignored him and climbed three flights of
stairs, two steps at a time. I stopped before the ebony tinted glass door and
had a good look at my reflection. Black ankle length socks peeped out of my
white sneakers. My phone made the left pocket of my mustard shorts bulge out of
proportion. White cords snaked across my white tee, split into two at my collar
bone and culminated into a pair of earplugs that played Powerless by
Nelly Furtado.
...
this life is too short to live it just for you
I
stepped into the pub. It was still too early for the regulars to come in.
There was only one group of three girls and two guys laughing at a corner
table. I stood on my toes to see the faces of the guys. I could only manage to
see the wild curls of the guy on the right. Nope, not him. And then, the guy on
the left stood up.
...
But when you feel so powerless what are you gonna do
Almost
reflexively, I turned around and ran out of the bar with my heart thumping
loudly. I did not stop till I reached home. I was too terrified of letting him
see me to wait to identify him. I could only remember his dark hair and big
forehead. Had I been running from a stranger? Or had I really seen him? I could
not sleep that night despite the tossing and turning. I yielded and sat up on
my bed. It was time to make use of my social engineering skills.
I
booted my laptop and searched for Tushhar Naipaul. His LinkedIn profile led me
to his blog on Tumblr. I wasn’t interested in the Harley-Davidsons that
cluttered his page. I had to read his private pages. I would have to hack into
his account. I asked my conscience to shut up and launched a series of attacks
on his account. All the workshops on information security I had attended over
the years finally paid off; and after 27 minutes of battling against digital
protection, I discovered Tushhar was a tech-virgin. It wasn’t fair to label him
so. After all, most of my professors at the university couldn’t hold their own
against my hack-attacks. I only hoped his private posts would be worth my
effort. My eyelids were heavy at 1:48 AM. My first lecture at college next
morning was on Distributed Computing, scheduled for 9:15. I’d never make it in
time if I went through the 18 hidden posts on his blog. I yawned loudly and
decided to read anyway.
His
writing was slow, smooth and engrossing... like a John Williams composition.
His was a story of unrequited love. He had met his object of affection at
Mandarin classes four years ago. He would sit next to her every afternoon on
the wooden bench at the extreme right corner of the room and watch her practise
the 20 new characters they’d learn each day. He would struggle with the nib of
his ink pen and speak to her on the pretext of borrowing hers. The soft touch
of her fingers as they brushed against his; the dewy look in her eyes as she
pitied his ineptitude in Mandarin; her gentle smile as she offered her spare
pen... these made it easy for him to sit through the two-hour class that put
most students to sleep.
They
spent an entire year learning Mandarin Level-1, during which they advanced from
sitting beside each other to sharing smoothies, with two straws at first to
only one by mid-year. They would look into each other’s eyes when Ms. Liu would
screen a Chinese movie and ask the class to pay attention to the accent. He
thought of her every time they made Chinese at the canteen, and also every time
they didn’t. His mind drifted to thoughts of her every time he held anything that
was made in China, and almost everything was.
It
was on the day they passed their basic Mandarin test that he saw her kiss a guy
who looked like he could be her boyfriend. He was shattered. He recounted the
poignancy with no trace of bitterness for the girl. He told himself that it was
an error of judgement on his part and the girl had never been at fault. He
tried to forget everything but he could never forget how she had looked on
Chinese New Year, in her red and gold qípáo made of silk.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks as I finished reading his last post. I
had a done a terrible thing by hacking into his account.
