April,
2003,
East Side, Manhattan Borough, NY.
Couple of days later…
It was six in the evening. “Shalu look after her. I will be back in an hour,” he said donning a tweed jacket. “Where are you leaving for?” Shalini thwarted in his course, “Nowhere,” he answered shoving her aside mindfully, “Got to go get some fresh air. I will be back, don’t be worried”, he assured her that he will be fine and only then she allowed him to leave. Shalini could see how dejected and dolorous Aryan was since his arrival in the house. She took a concern over him being down in the dumps and closely monitored on his general activity.
He walked down the main street, a busy commercial street crowded with people and automobiles hovering around with no let-up, horns buzzed loudly every minute from one or the other vehicle and People? It goes without saying a word of the public on a mercantile street. Yet Aryan heard no din while he tootled along the thoroughfare. It appeared that he was in a vacuum sealed ambience as he wended his way in to his past.
I cannot go back to the college. I wouldn’t be admitted in any context due to my failure of abiding to the university policies during the internship. Maybe I would let them know of Nemo’s demise and that should compel the university on my admission. Fuck, it is too late. I lived by my intuition that University would reject if I propose for a re-instating and now I suffer the repercussions. I flunked in junior school, while I just managed to clear the high school with an average percentage. No bright background in education except that I was serious in the sophomore year but why? Oh! Because of my passion towards cars. That’s quite a shitload in the dump yard. What good does it do? It doesn’t supply a criteria to be eligible for a job outside in a company.
Several other thoughts over floated in his mind. He was occluded further when he heard two juveniles talk about smoking.
“Dude, why do you smoke?” one of them asked. “It releases stress, takes pressure off of you. You find contentment and then you drown in the rhapsody,” the other answered him, “it feels good to smoke, smoke!” he said and blew out smoke rings.
Aryan found a vape shop hundred meters down the lane. He walked up to the place, “Boardwalk elixir Vapors,” he read out loud and ambled on the drugget inside the shop. A vapologist helped him with the nicotine liquid cartridge. “Flavour?” the vapologist asked Aryan, “Get me your choice,” he blurted. He finally had the stick, let’s do it He tapped the e-cigarette on his chest and slipped it in his mouth. He waited before he drew the puff from the e-cig and recalled the instructions No quick short drags, it should be slow and a long one. Nice and easy, wait until the smoke fills your mouth. Nice and easy. Before he proceed to his primer puff, he was intercepted by his phone. He pulled it out of his jacket.
Kalki calling…
“Before you talk, I have to tell you this,” he voiced out quickly before she uttered any shrilling vocable, “I am sorry that I couldn’t answer your calls and respond to your messages. I am going through a lot right now and I will break it down to explain the situation when time permits me to do it”. While he was prepared to hear on an acerbic rant, he wasn’t aware of an approaching allocution. The response she delivered soberly blew up his mind, “Honey, it took me sometime to understand that you too have a life. You expect, nope”, she tsk-tsked and continued, “you hope that I give you some space for it,” She said, “So darling, you don’t have to be sorry. I am perfectly alright” she said and kissed him. “You know what? I never knew why I had fallen for you but for now I see something, a reason if you wanna name it,” he paused. “What is it?” she asked. Aryan answered, “Your sentience” and kissed her back.
That kiss and her honeyed voice worked like a puff of smoke. He had never smoked before in his entire life till to that point of tending to smoke. He loved Kalki helping him refrain from doing it. He realised why there was no need of a smoke when he had the love.
Although JAPMI was well reputed company in the nation it was not acknowledged by many of the people but Dayanand achieved a tremendous recognition for his contribution in the industry. It was the good deeds of Dayanand which made the communication agencies step back from telecasting the news over the county and state. None of the citizenry, including Kalki, were aware of what had happened with the family of Hadars. Aryan decided to inform her but only by cutting it short in effacing the douce which would make her feel anxious and faze.
“Honey, I have to tell you something,” Aryan fumbled saying it. “What is it, Aryan”, she asked with no sign of tautness. “Our company faced a huge crisis. It all came up to the surface couple of days ago,” he paused and an emotional reticence prevailed for a brief moment, “our house and other assets were seized. We are grappling to save ourselves from some trouble,” she intervened before Aryan had completed, “What? How? Where are you? Aryan I am tensed”, She asked with surcease. Aryan moved by her perturbation pitched in, “Honey! Hold on. The present seems to favour us and I tell you there is no need for worry,” he took the edge off of her with his trumped up assertion. “You sure?” Kalki enquired getting in tizzy, “I am worried for you Aryan,” She said and silence hold sway yet another moment.
Stupefied Kalki uttered, “Aryan I am gonna come see you tomorrow. Why don’t you tell me where you are?”
Sweetheart it’s complicated and I am not at my liberty to tell you truths right away Aryan muttered to himself and continued, “Sweetheart, listen. Let me tell you, this is not the right time for you to come here. I will come see you after I am in possession of all my faculties. It’s gonna take a while, until then. Take care of yourself, we will be fine too,” he assured her.
“You better say it true to your words and remember, I will be waiting for your arrival,” she said in a suppressed tone.
“You knew me better than I know myself. I got to go now” He said. “Keep in touch, promise me that you gonna talk day by day” she asked.
“I cannot make a promise that I can’t keep but I will try the best of possible and probable,” he hanged up on the call.
Talking to her was a medicine to his mental illness. If he tried and made it to hear her voice for few minutes on a daily status, Aryan thought that it would give him positive energy that could just hold him onto be in more power and help him to continue to do what he intended to do.
By then Aryan had already stepped out from the vape shop onto the pavement across the avenue walking back with the progression of his talk on phone. While he had just decided to return home, a sign of hope laid bare in a voice.
“Hello sir,” the voice from his behind called him while he was on his way back. Aryan was sceptical when he first heard the calling but momentarily he tumbled on to reckon that he was in the know about the voice. He swivelled to clap eyes on the unknown. No one Aryan left a grimace. He noticed nobody on the trail, am I in a dream? He asked himself and continued with his pace on his way. “Excuse me Sir. I am here,” The voice said. He turned back and looked around; he found a man sitting inside a cab. You calling me? Aryan gesticulated in a soliloquy Oh wait… you chum…
Aryan got nearer to the car, “I bet you are the same guy”, he said to the man sitting in the driver’s seat of the hackney.
“Yeah! I am that same guy who you think the same guy I am. Get in the car, sir” he said and started the engine. Aryan climbed into the back seat of the car.
As the car pulled over its engine, Aryan recollected instances from the past. “I guess I was riding in the same car few months ago,” he said.
“Precisely sir” the man replied and Aryan continued, “You drove me to my home on the day of my grandfather’s demise. Thank you Mr. Akbar Farrukhsiyar,” he cleared his throat.
“I was intending to ask you the same Sir but I revoked on the notion,” before Akbar uttered further Aryan interposed, “You don’t have to call me sir. I am Aryan, just Aryan. I like us to be friends calling names,” Aryan said, “how are you friend? How’s everything?” Aryan paused staring outside the window, “I’ve never conceived that I would see you again. Of course I do remember on the visiting card that I’ve given you but that’s a different story all together. It’s a licence to see my father,”
“Oh Aryan, Never mind… I am fine with my happy business, and I am able to earn a living for my family. ” Akbar seemed to find a great pleasure in the company of Aryan, “how are you doing dear?” he asked in return and said, “That might just be a stupid question to the rich men but I’d like to admire courtesy,”
“I am okay. By the way, you have your business? ” Aryan asked.
“Yes Aryan. The endowment of fifteen grands from you back then had a significant impression on my livelihood. I have opened a car mechanic shed. It may be a small shop but the returns are satisfactory and I am happy educating my children alongside with a part time job of driving my cab”, said the man, “Aryan, out of curiosity. May I ask? You are okay…” he took a glimpse of Aryan, “you mean… just… okay or absolutely okay..?”
“Well that’s always been my Achilles heel and I probably biting off more than I can chew. Whatever, to answer you… Yeah! Kind of. Life’s become hard to live, lately.” He said.
Akbar decelerated the car and it eventually halted on the pathway inside a narrow lane, “Aryan, it is the rich men like you guys who’d rejoice in every other thing and it is the lame life of a cab driver or an equivalent job holder’s life which is hard to live by,” he said and turned back, “by the way, This is my home”, he raised his chin and drifted sideways to show him a house on the right side of the cab. They both climbed down the car, “I disagree friend. Everybody’s got hurdles at one or other point of time in their lives,” Aryan said walking abreast Akbar. “The way you say it,” said Akbar giggling as they walked in.
Aryan revealed to him about the tragedy. He was terrified after hearing to what Aryan had told him. It was scarcely credible to him on what had happened with the family of Hadars. Aryan had requested to lend his cab and Akbar complied with no hesitation in letting Aryan make the use of it. He had decided to drive his hackney for taking home a few dollars to fetch provisions for the family. At that very point of time in his life, Aryan believed, that the only choice was to drive the hackney.
The other day Aryan told him to come see him if he needed any help at any time and then, even before he consummated on it, he was in his house for a solicitation. Life is not hard until you find a way to live on our own. Aryan thought Life is not hard when you have people around you who can drop by to offer you their services when you are falling. Life is a challenge, I realised. I see it now, why mama always suggested me to live on my own and not to rely on the inheritance of deep pockets.
That day in his life was to be a sad but a memorable day as it made his presence in the confessions of reality, how the life of an average family would be and why those people fought for a single penny. He was happy as he started to be one among them learning to live by himself, Welcome to the second phase of life, Aryan, he said to myself, let’s face it. He got hold of the keys and drove back home.
Power and Pelf 