A Homecoming, Friends, and A Writer....

The auto ride was bumpy, and it was uninteresting. The route was the ring road, quite obviously a part of delhi, no one can have much affection for. Not because of the traffic, but because everyone knows the ring road, everyone knows where it goes: around, or to say it differently, no where. It is only when they turned off the ring road, or actually, when the driver asked him, (yes this is the same Eduard) which exit would be best, that he felt any sort of connection.

He sat back, watching the lights of the ISBT flash by, that unending hub of human coming and going, which never sleeps, nor appears to know night, another place in delhi, which holds no personal connection for anyone except as a start, or an end of adventure, but never as a home, or a even a place, that he started to think about home. And homecoming was finally cemented, when the driver asked him where to turn of the ring road.

Ring roads, highways, medical, all these places, are just things, there is nothing sacred about them, nothing inviolate, nothing secret. They are, everyone uses them, and just that. No one thinks about them, there are no or few memories of a ring road. Ring roads do not take you home, it is exits from ring roads that do. And Eduard, too felt that, home was approaching now, now that he had to find the right exit.

He predictably found the wrong exit. It wasn’t a huge error, he could correct it easily, an extra left turn here, and a right, and they were back on track. It felt nice to be giving the atuo driver directions, but these directions weren’t unique, you could have asked anyone on the road side, and they’d have told you. This still wasn’t home. It wasn’t secret, the roads were still known, to all, and even his auto driver seemed to know his way around the place.

It was only later, when they were searching for that particular house, where he would live for a few days, in a locality which had several of his haunts from the last three years, that he finally was home in any real way. These were places, only those who lived there knew. Which food stalls were open late, which shops sold water cheaper than others, where to find a particular brand of something. These were questions only people who shared this home with him could answer. These were mysteries, three years of wandering had solved. And this is what made him cherish the place. He knew it, in a very literal way, and in an almost encyclopedic manner, or so he thought.

Delhi was just a name to him, the ring road, merely a ribbon of tarred earth, his exit, a pathway off it, but still impersonal, but it was when he guided his auto into the last rutted and potholed, ill lit lane, completely confident of where he was going, while others would struggle, that the meaning of home was clear. The uniqueness of one’s home, the familiarity only a few share.

The auto obviously didn’t want to go much further down this lane, uncertain of where it was going, and Eduard was bursting with enthusiasm recognizing stores, and lights, and advertisement boards, with different adverts now, but still in the same place.

Suddenly he told the auto to stop, he paid it, and left it, stranded, in a strange place, to best make its way back out. He didn’t care, even without the lights, and very often they weren’t any, he would have been okay in this lane. He walked down the lane, silently, immersing himself in the person he had been when he last went down the lane. He gait took on the slow, unhurried pace of the purposeless college student. His gaze was more vacant, and his body less stiff less straight. He looked around him, noticing the shop that he had bought rolling paper from, regularly, until they found one closer to his friend’s house that carried the same brand. Another bit of information that made this place home, in the inner circle of CP, if you found what you wanted you bought, unless you knew better. Knowing, yes, knowing, that’s what made home, home.

He brought out his cell phone, it was time to call. His train had been 5 hours late, he had told her to sleep, but he knew her. She would be awake. In fact he was surprised she hadn’t come to the station, but it wasn’t NDLS he’d got down at, and it would have been unsafe for her to come all the way to the south just to pick him up at midnight.

He looked at the tired screen of his phone, and the keypad which looked much older than the 3 months old it was. He pressed a few buttons, without looking, checked once, in a careless glance, yes it was her number he had selected, and hit the dial button, and dropped the phone back to his side. It would be at least a few seconds before the call connected, no need to hold the phone upto his ear yet. Had it been another phone, perhaps, he’d not have been so confident, but it was his phone, just as this was his home, and he needn’t watch each step he took here.

Just as he raised the phone to put it to his ear, he saw her. He cut the call, before it connected, the motion of his finger barely perceptible. He never moved his hand, nor checked that the call would cut, the just put his phone away. He still wasn’t sure, well not beyond a 99% but it seemed like her.

The first thing he notices was her hips, they rolled from side to side, as they always had, and then the curves of her body, going upwards, towards her face. They weren’t visible, in the dim light, and lose Tee shirt she was wearing, but still to his mind, this manifestation of home was clear enough. Yes it was her.

His gait quickened, and she too increased her pace. Her face became clear, she was wearing her hair high, untidily clipped. He hated it like that, but well, it was comfortable for her. He could hear the soft slap of her shoes on the wet road, her shoes were slippery on her slightly too small feet. And there was that waist of hers again. So beautiful as it moved closer to him.

When they reached each other, her face was only half lit, from the left, some spill from a street lamp. Throwing an amber glow on her dark skin. Her lips, mere shadows, her eyes the only part of her that were clearly visible, and they shone, with a light, and a beauty, a beauty that had drawn him back and again and again, and even from Mumbai, he had come back. And when she got really close, just before he lifted her in his embrace, he noticed the twinkling of her nose pin – green, her favourite colour, there, as it had always been. Well not quite, but for long enough to become part of her.

I wonder what she thought, as she saw Eduard, coming back to her after so long. Things weren’t perfect between them, they never were, nor would be, probably. But that didn’t matter to them, the highs more than compensated for the lows. But I would give a lot to know what she thought, as he lifted her in his embrace, roughly, not even really taking any great care of her body, and just pressing her against his chest, and trusting friction to keep her there. He walked forward a few steps, her legs dangling from side to side. It always felt nice to take advantage of how small she was, and he never missed a chance.

She felt so light in his arms, and so comfortable, almost like an oversized teddy bear, something he had often compared her too. She didn’t like it much, she wanted to be treated like a lady, something, which he was incapable of, being, and taking great pride in being an uncultured oaf. Who swore, and shouted, in front of females as much as he did in front of males.

It wasn’t a thing very popular outside his limited circle of friends, and he often was chided by the fairer sex for being so boorish, but he was back among people who were like him, and treated people on their merit, not on the merit of their peculiar organs. That was another thing he believed.

“Put me down,” She said, it couldn’t be too comfortable, being carried around like a sac. A beloved sack, yes, but a sack none the less.

He did, and pulled her chin up, and looked into her eyes. She put her arms around his waist and looked up at him. It was a still moment, her hair was drifting in the breeze ever so slightly. They were oblivious of the things around them. And then it broke, he bent down and pecked her lips, and then gave her a more lingering kiss, another familiar sensation he’d missed, they hugged tightly, and then as they broke away, she always conscious of being a girl gave a furtive glance around, and lead him to the stairs to her house.

“Why did you come down, i didn’t call,”

“I say your auto,”

“But it could have been any auto”

“But i knew it was you, watch that stone,”

“Ow! Couldn’t you have warned me earlier?”

“Couldn’t you look?”

“Fuck you,”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Well yes among other things.”

“Other things? Hmm... what else do you plan to do?” the mischief in her voice made the expression pretty clear,

“Well there’s Giddy, and Pinky, and new life, and a few other things, plus i actually do have some serious work in college.”

“Oh so you’re going to do Giddy and Pinky, instead of me? Huh, is that the plan?”

“Well, why not we both do them together,” this reference to an animalistic threesome would he was sure win this round of the battle for him.

Pinky is a dog, a very awesome dog, who this story can’t do much justice too, since Eduard, never met Pinky in Delhi, and yes he is very sad about it, or I’ll make him sad in this story, which is effectively the same thing!!

Giddy is a guy, pretty awesome as far as guys go, but nothing compared to Pinky. Though, they definitely share the same hue. Giddy, or Girdion as his parents named him, of course that means me, is a stout young man. Entirely practical, and almost Bernard Shaw like in his distaste for society. However, unlike Shaw, he is quite comfortable within, and uses it’s idiosyncrasies to benefit himself, quite well. He lies, without conscience, he is honest, equally without conscience, and that makes Eduard, distrust him very thoroughly, but openly, making them ideal friends, since they only depend on each other for amusement, and the occasional favour. They would both feel extremely encumbered if their souls shared a very deep bond, given that their minds already did. Feeling would simply crush their friendship, making them either enemies, or lovers.

Yes, both Eduard and Giddy, as I prefer to call him, would like to be Bi-sexual, but to the best of my knowledge, (which as author is absolute) neither of them are. Images on face book, or college banter to the contrary do not exist in this little universe I’m creating, so you can quit it!

Giddy is quite happy with his girlfriend who he isn’t dating, and they’re quite happy together, which they aren’t. Enough said about him.

They were up the stairs, and walking across the balcony to her house, when it suddenly struck him, this wasn’t his house. Not really, it couldn’t be home. It wouldn’t be. He couldn’t say why, but it was her house, and her home. The by extension, his, somehow didn’t occur to him. Something that was driven home when she said, just as she opened the door, “leave your slippers outside.”

This was something he’d never done, and something, he’d never do in his own house. Hmm... he realised, homecoming yes, home? Not so much.

The rest of the morning, was pleasant enough. He spent it chatting to her, as he undressed her, and they made the best they could of making love. I shan’t paint a romantic picture of the two of them copulating, simply because it wasn’t. The passion was ardent, the desire great, and the love almost overwhelming, but the laws of physics, and biology require a little more than that to bow in abisience.

They tried gallantly, and in typical idiomatic fashion, in aiming for the moon landed on the stars, and were quite satisfied, yet aware of unfulfilled promise. Neither blamed the other, it was merely natural.

She had college to go to. This wasn’t very nice, he had travelled from Mumbai to see her, and she was ditching him for college? Was that fair? Well things were what they were, she loved her practicals, and was good at them, she loved him too, he supposed. She had to go, or risk the ire of her Head of Department, and a hail of fire and brimstone, it would appear. Still he was quite irked, and I completely sympathise with him, and will be partial to his cause.

On his first day home, he was left unceremoniously at the gate of his college, to best fend for himself, for the better part of the next three hours.

Luckily he had something to do. He went searching for his dogs. They were in fact, the main reason he’d returned to Delhi, he was missing them terribly. Dogs have a way of not wanting anything. They may, very well, leave you to fend for yourself, for the better part of three hours, but will not hold it against you that you left them to fend for themselves for the better part of three months before that. (which is what he’d done) and will greet you with unleashed dams of joy whenever they do, making three months, and three hours seem very similar, which is both a good and a bad thing!

He walked down the corridors of his college, noting places he’d met people, dark corners he’d met people when they didn’t want to be met. Darker corners he’d gone to, to ensure no one met him. Rules he’d broken, rules he established, and in general all the time he’d wasted. Nostalgia too is usually wasted.

But it was strange to him. Despite all these memories, things seemed different, quieter, alien. Even the staff seemed weird, distorted. The corridors were silent, where was, whoever it was who usually stood at the corner waiting for his girlfriend, at whom he’d poke fun, for always waiting. Where was the girl, always looking for something to do? Where was that, well, where was everything? Even the dustbins were clean and shiny, where was the trash? The dogs? What had happened.

Another thing dawned on him, as he walked down the corridors, he was the only one feeling out of place. The serious girl in the faded jeans with the jhola, who was discussing something in all earnest, had he heard her mention Hegel? Was strange, yet completely at home. So was the guy sitting in the window frame swinging his legs staring out into space, and occasionally running a hand through his hair. Yet, he shouldn’t be there, that window used to be empty, perpetually, for fear of the principal overhearing, on his way to his office, whatever was being said there. And the staff room, there were people waiting outside, for teachers to emerge, really? People waited for teachers, had there been similar crowds when he was in college? He seemed sure they wern’t, yet these crowds seemed perfectly natural, doing their regular business, but then where did he fit in?

Home? Yes, Homecoming? Not so much...

Did he fit in?

Before he could answer his phone rang. Oh..

It was Giddy, it was early for him, he should be in office, what was up?

Hmm, as he answered the phone, he was glad to be aware of the discomfort he felt facing Giddy, or the excitement, or, portentious nature of Giddy calling him out of the ordinary. Giddy, was pretty extraordinary as things went, and when he was extraordinary by his own high standards, that was something!!

Suddenly, Eduard felt cold, what if Giddy wasn’t being extraordinary, but merely ordinary... calling up to ask how he was, or some such prosaic thing... it was a chilling thought.

He answered his phone, “Hi,”

“Eddy boy,” still normal, Eduard breathed a sigh of relief, tinged by the usual irritation at being called that, “I need help.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here, but hurry.”

Now, Eduard didn’t know where here was, and he knew for a fact, that he didn’t know what ‘help’ would entail... but, well, at least some things were still as abnormal as he remembered. “Sure dude, I’ll come. But you’ll have to tell me where.”