( Winner of the Odd-Even Short Story Contest by Readomania )
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| www.quoteshunter.com |
It had been about four
weeks since they had started going to work together. Arjun would drop Jaya off
at her workplace and then go to his own. Jaya had slid into her new lifestyle
with a determined air. She clearly remembered how she had opposed the match the
first time it had been proposed by her mother.
“I am not going to marry
this man!” she had declared.
“And why, pray tell us?” her mother had countered.
“He laughs way too much. And
unnecessarily. He is much too gregarious.” Jaya had complained.
“Oh good lord! Your father didn’t so
much as smile at the best of jokes! He didn’t have any sense of conversation.
Did I just reject him then?” her mother had shouted. “Here you have a
well-to-do man, who is amiable and friendly, looks great and you have a problem
with his smile??”
“If she doesn’t want to marry, why
are you forcing her?” her father had said in her support.
“It is not about marriage, it is about
her high-brow attitude! Who does she think she is? Queen Victoria??” her mother
had reached her temper. “She has rejected men outright without even meeting
them once! And I wouldn’t have cared had she brought a man of her own. But no!
This girl lives in a world of her own! She wants to die an old maid!”
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT? IF YOU
DON’T WANT TO KEEP ME, THEN I WILL GO AND LIVE ON MY OWN, GET IT?” Jaya had
screamed.
Her mother’s face had gone red, her
voice dangerously quiet.
“You do it for their benefit and
they shout back at you. This is how today’s children repay their parents.”
Then her eyes had suddenly shone as
she came up with a new argument.
“Mark my words!” she had looked at
her husband. “This girl cannot live with anyone! She is a loner! A stuck-up old
fool! A complete fool to reject a perfect man like Arjun! I don’t think she
even deserves him!”
That had touched a nerve in Jaya. Before
her father could handle the situation, she had blurted out, “You think I don’t
deserve him?! You think I can’t live with a man? Let me give him a chance as
you say. I will marry him. If he is able to win me over in three months, then
great. Else the burden of a failed marriage would lie on you.”
And that’s how Arjun and Jaya had
been married two months ago.
Today, however their
travel routine had to change. There was some new scheme about ‘odd-even’ doing
the rounds. Apparently, odd numbered vehicles could ply on odd days and
even-numbered on even. However, women had been exempted from this rule.
And so the second
weekday of the year saw her at the wheel. Arjun stood outside, his smiling face
framed against the window of the passenger seat.
“See you in the evening,”
he waved and began to walk away.
Jaya put the car into
gear and started the engine. Very soon, she had crossed the street and the bus-stop.
She saw Arjun standing there. He waved. She smiled back curtly.
Should she ask him to
take a cab or something?
No need. He was a grown man. He knew what to do. And
it was no fault of hers that he had to take the public transport. Blame the government.
She had no business feeling sympathetic for him.
Tuesday promised to be a
normal day. Arjun was at the wheel again and Jaya sat beside him. Despite
herself, she felt a little less guilty today. After all, yesterday, the poor
guy had to be jostled to and fro in the buses. Today, he could go as usual.
“What are you thinking?”
Arjun asked her, noticing her creased brow.
“Nothing,” she said, putting
on her polite mask again.
A week passed and Arjun
saw Jaya off at the car again.
“Drive safe. Take care.”
His words seemed to have
unseated her. She felt a little uncomfortable.
“Ye--es.” she said.
He started walking away
and she quickly blurted out, “You take care too! And tell me when you reach.”
Arjun looked at her,
pleasantly surprised. “Yes, yes, I sure will.” he said and waved to her.
On Friday, Arjun left a little early
since he wanted to try a new route.
When Jaya
got to her office, she wondered whether Arjun had reached. He had taken the
metro that day.
As if he had read her
thoughts, her phone rang.
“Hello!” she queried
into the phone, her heart beating strangely.
“When did you reach?”
Arjun’s voice filled her ears.
“A while ago,” she
replied.
“You?” she was quick to
ask.
“Just. I thought of
calling you because there wasn’t much petrol in the car. Did you stop at a gas
station?”
“Umm no.”
“I think you should get
the tank filled on your way back. Just in case.”
Arjun had a habit of taking her out
every Sunday to a new restaurant. When they went this time, Jaya decided to
wear the black suit she had worn on Friday. Arjun hadn’t seen this one. He had
left for office early that day and she had reached home before him.
They were at the traffic signal,
waiting for it to turn green. It turned green thrice and went back to red.
“Phew! Are we never going to get
there?” Arjun wondered aloud.
Jaya looked around them. The cars
were kissing each other's sides and whatever space was left had been claimed by
bikes.
"I think you should plan
outings on weekdays now," she said.
"Would you like to
have this?" he pointed towards the golgappa
stall.
Much to her own
surprise, Jaya giggled at the inanity of the suggestion.
“You know it would be felo de se for me to have a) stuff
whipped up from the street grime b) something that would directly hit our
throats in the chilly winter.”
“A felo de se! Hmm I see…You dying for my sake? I must be the luckiest
man on earth!” he grinned.
Something in his smile caught
at her heart. She was surprised to feel a thrill run down her spine and more
so, when she gladly acquiesced to his outrageous suggestion.
“All right! Let’s go
your way this time, you nutter!” she said in a tone lighter than Arjun had ever
heard her use. It brought a warmth to his heart and made him jump, pop-eyed at
her #peppy demeanour.
“Are you sure?” he asked,
a trifle doubtful.
“Well, do I really have
a choice with this hopeless traffic?”
A few minutes later,
when they plopped the crunchy balls full of masala-laced stuffing and spicy
water into their mouths, Jaya wincing at the spice spreading its effects all
over her throat and Arjun looking adoringly at her, he knew that finally,
something had struck home.
“You know, we could let
the car be and actually help the cause of reducing pollution.” Jaya said the
night before the fourteenth.
“Don’t be idealistic. I
don’t want you to face the dust and grime. Not another felo de se! Thank you very much!” he joked.
Looking at her face,
framed by tendrils of black hair falling over her forehead, he had an
irresistible urge to take her in his arms and express all he had felt for her
since the time he had seen her at her house.
It had been love at first sight.
He was just relieved that she had accepted him. But however much he felt for
her, he knew she was different. She did not like him as much. Something
separated them.
Now however, he felt it coming loose. Things had finally
started to fall into place. It was just very recently that she had started
being herself and he could see chinks of her true self shine forth from her
armour of pride. He had promised to wait as long as it would take for her to
get comfortable, to feel at home with him.
Jaya had a feeling that
Arjun wouldn’t let her take the metro when there was a car and she was even
more astonished to realize that she wanted to accompany him at least on the
last day of this bizarre scheme that had wrought such changes in her and made
her feel things she had not felt before.
The next morning, when
she had dressed and was readying herself to leave, she made sure the keys were
safely in her drawer. When they reached the car park, Arjun turned to wave her
off.
“Oh! I forgot the keys!”
Jaya said dramatically, half smiling to herself.
Arjun looked at her, a
twinkle in his eyes, “You know you are a bad actor. Don’t even try. Why are you
suddenly all bhartiya naari types?
Wanting to partake of your husband’s joys and sorrows?” he asked, a laugh in
his voice.
“I want to test you,
mister. Whether you are capable of taking care of me or not. Whether you are
fulfilling your vows or not.”
Something gripped Arjun
and he couldn’t help pulling Jaya to himself.
“Testing me, are you?”
he quizzed her, his hands around her waist.
“We are at the society
carpark, dear husband. Aren’t you forgetting your place?” she asked, her open
voice #peppy, giggling and pleasantly inviting.
“You are such a
temptress! Forgive me madame! Your charms have made me forget my place!”
At the metro, they stood
like college lovers, leaning against the barrier separating the women’s coach
from the general one, talking to each other over the bobbing heads of
chattering boys and girls.
The disembodied voice
announced the approaching metro station.
“Goodbye for now.” Jaya
said to Arjun with a smile. The train halted and there was a commotion. But
Arjun didn’t move.
“What?” Jaya asked
incredulously.
“Let me drop you off
first,” he said.
“Don’t be silly.”
But he didn’t move.
“You are such a total nut.”
Jaya said, laughing.
“You know what, don’t
go.” he suddenly said.
The next station had
arrived.
“Have you been to ‘The
Garden of Five Senses’?” he asked her as the train began moving again.
“Umm no,” Jaya said,
wondering what he was getting at.
“Then let’s go see it.”
“You are out of your
mind.” she said, staring at him.
“Oh! Come on! A single
day won’t wreck your career! Let’s go, seriously, it will be great.”
Half of him knew that
she wasn’t one of those who took on-the-spot decisions or was game for anything
and everything, throwing caution to the winds. But the other half wanted to try
his luck. Especially now when she had opened up and was willing to extend her hand
for friendship.
“And what will you say
at work?” Jaya asked softly.
“I will say it’s Cupid
calling. Sorry no can do!” he winked.
A spark that had been
flickering within her since the past few weeks had now grown into a
full-fledged fire. When she allowed Arjun to take her arm and they made their
way out of the metro together, she knew something had changed within her. She
knew things would never be the same again.
That weekend, they
visited many other places that he had wanted her to see, places she always
delegated as ‘couple’ places.
“I really can’t believe
I am one of those people,” she said while snuggling into him. “Those mawkishly
sentimental people who go to mushy places and put up icky selfies.”
But as the weekend drew
to a close, she found herself updating her profile picture- a snap of the two
of them sharing a chocolate.
So soppy. So sugary. But
weirdly she found herself loving it. Whether the odd-even trial had any #impact, she couldn’t say, but the trial she had put Arjun on had stood the test of
time.
