All people are slave to routine. From the time we are born, to the time we die. When niece was born last year, I saw them in different moods. Sometime she is happy, sometime naughty and mostly helpless, trying to go somewhere. That also becomes a routine and we all know till she start moving around, until then she poops, she eats and she sleeps. Mostly dad & mom will say, “What else they can do…”, “that’s all they can do.” And I generally reply, “Are we any different?” We join the Indian education system, which hardly changes. I went to the school for the straight 12years. Then I went to college for 4years. It is debatable whether “change is the only constant” or “routine is the only every lasting habit” in our life. Another routine with the modern metro-lifestyle is to buy our vegetables every weekend in the nearby super market. With fat purses and dangling MNC badge, we are the slave to the urbanized mode of everything we purchase.
Saturday morning is for waking up after the five days of slogging at the office. The cool morning breeze always brighten ups the day. The morning chores are slow and sluggish. No hurry up to read the newspaper, no quick showers and no skipping breakfast. Saturday begins with a warm cup of tea to pair up with the newspaper; warm slow shower or a tub full of water. After which my cook will make a nice breakfast which will be around 10am. A little chit-chat with him and noting down the list of items to be purchased in the morning and hence my routine of weekend begins with a lazy trip to the nearby super market.
The beautiful part of the trip to super market is how they stack up all the items neatly in rows. Even though some of the things are absolutely rubbish, just because it is neatly stacked up, we go ahead and purchase it sometimes. And when I make the lazy walks around the aisle, looking at unknown faces and stocked up trolleys a warmth apparits by the magic created by the supermarkets.
In all this routine, in all this warmth, someone sneaked into my life. When we have busy plans, life is one that passes us by. In my case, it was life which was making plans and was passing by the lanes in the super market. As I rounded the corner of olive oil, my thoughts pre-occupied with the list of movies which are playing in the theater, I bumped into the person ahead of me. She gave a short yell and then collapsed onto the ground, holding her ankle underneath the pink skirt with a lace boarder line. She turned around to scream at me, but somehow she couldn’t. Balancing her spectacles, she gave me the ugly glare. I removed the trolley out of the way and bent down with tones of apologies. It was an honest mistake and even though the evil-me was smiling for bumping in a girl, I was right now more concerned if she has not broken something. All along my stupid mind was thinking that picking her up will be like one of those romantic slow motion Hindi movie scenes; but it turned out to be opposite. She was so mad that as soon as I held her hand to pick her up, she dug her nails deep into my forearm. Biting the pain, I still managed to get her up and balanced on her two clumsy feet.
She said with a smile, biting her tongue, “the nails were for the bump. Now we are even.” And she walked off towards the counter to checkout her shopping items. While we were busy in bruising and falling, we both committed a silly mistake. While she carried my trolley to the counter, I too didn’t realize that the trolley and the content certainly can’t be of my preference. But the battle of the trolley and the nails wasn’t over yet. Nibble it may seem, life has some great moments. Few turns and picking up sports magazine, I entered the very queue she was checking out her (actually my) stuff. Just because of the huge person standing between us, I missed to see her, with her matching purse. But then I heard the same voice, stating it is a mix up and it is not her trolley. I saw my shaving kit and the sets of vegetables I have picked up, in the trolley next to her. It was then we both realized the mistake we have made. Suddenly I jumped the line; tapping her gently on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, ma’am but you went off with my trolley. Here is your trolley.” The smile was back and so was the glitter in her eyes. The fuming cheeks few minutes ago have turned into blushing plus dimple scenery. A quite thank you came back.
She checked out her stuff, while I waited in the queue, not one moment taking my eyes off her. She kept on looking back in between to check if I am still around. The person standing in the middle hand a bunch of items and while he was checking out, the girl in the spectacles was standing next to the rows of trolleys. Even without words, we were saying so much to each other. While her eyes said, “I am sorry for the nails and hopefully I am not stupid, standing here waiting for you.” And my eyes said, “Just hold on for a minute, while I get my items checked out. There is a coffee day round the corner.” As soon as I came out of the counter, she smiled and thrust her hand out saying, “Hi! I am Tina.” I smiled promptly and replied, “Hi! I am Alex”.
The conversation was initially apologetic, then cordial and lastly casual. The time taken from the “Sorry” to the “Oh, you too like animated movies” was all I needed to conjure the words, the charm to ask her for the coffee. After all, a leading chain says, “A lot can happen over coffee”. And when I finally say, those words, “Would you like to have a cup of coffee”, it felt such stupid, like I blurred rather than saying it in a charmed way. May be the stupid, boyish charm made her say yes. And we took our bags to my car and we drove to the nearest coffee shop. I wished I had kept my car a little tidy but sadly it wasn’t with all office papers littering the back seat. She didn’t mind much and added that she isn’t that tidy either.
The coffee tasted good, but the conversations were even better. Like minded people bumped into each other and now share the likings in books, movies and software profession. She was a content writer, working for MNC and was slave to the similar routine. Gladly she was also happy with the break of routine; meeting someone out of the blue. We exchanged numbers and a feeble promise to call each other. Neither of us was sure whether to call the other or not to.
As we headed different direction (she refused to be dropped back home and I didn’t prodded much) there was the hope of silver lining and the warmed of the spark. Some way love has found a way into our life or may be life planted the seed of love in our busy routine. Whatever it may be, it has happened.
I waited two days on a friend’s advice to call her. First think she said, “What took you so long” J
